Secret Kennedy Assassination Files Released, But Some Withheld

The National Archives in Washington has released more than 2,800 secret files related to the killing of President John F. Kennedy. The release late Thursday of the Kennedy files was required by a 1992 law. However, President Donald Trump ordered that more than 200 of the files should temporarily remain secret until a review is completed. Some people had questioned whether Trump would permit the release of the documents. On Wednesday, he tweeted: “The Long anticipated release of the #JFKFiles will take place tomorrow. So interesting!” But on Thursday, Trump said he had no choice but to accept recommendations to withhold some of the files. A Trump administration official said most of the recommendations had come from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency, or CIA.   Officials said Trump had given the agencies 180 days to explain why the remaining files should not be released. Larry Sabato at the University of Virginia is a historian and expert on Kennedy. Sabato said he was told that there was pressure on Trump to withhold some documents. He said documents generated in the 1990s could contain names of people who are still alive and these were of concern to some people. Widespread interest and conspiracy theories President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed while riding in an open car through Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963. He died hours later. The killing of JFK, as Kennedy is often called, has probably led to more questions and doubts than any other political killing in American history. The details of the event have led to countless theories that there was a conspiracy. Books, documentaries and at least one movie by director Oliver Stone “JFK,” have put forward theories about who killed Kennedy and why. Secret Service Agent Clint Hill was near the president on that day in November. He spoke about what he heard. “I thought it must have been a fatal wound, but I did not know for sure. But the only thing Mrs. Kennedy said was, ‘Oh Jack, Oh Jack what have they done?’ And then she said, ‘Jack I love you.’”   Soon after the shooting, Lee Harvey Oswald was charged with the killing. But he denied involvement. “Did you shoot the president?” “I did not shoot anybody. No, sir.” Oswald, however, was shot and killed by nightclub owner Jack Ruby before a trial could take place. Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as president immediately after Kennedy’s death. Johnson soon established a commission to investigate the killing. The commission was chaired by then-Chief Justice Earl Warren. It became known as the Warren Commission. In 1964, the commission completed its report which said that Oswald had acted alone. The commission also tried to discredit what it called “myths” that were already spreading related to the assassination. But details about Oswald’s travels before 1963 led many to believe others were involved. And they lead to a new term describing popular beliefs and ideas about events that are hard to understand: conspiracy theories. Among the details that have fueled conspiracy theories is the killing of Oswald, the main suspect. Another links Oswald with Cuban officials in Mexico City before the shooting. During Kennedy’s time in office, the failed effort to overthrow the Cuban government had caused bad relations with the U.S. to worsen. Then, the Cuban Missile Crisis pushed the U.S., Cuba and the Soviet Union close to war in 1962. Some people believed that Cuba’s leader at the time, Fidel Castro, was involved in Kennedy’s death. Oswald also was said to have spent years in the Soviet Union and then returned to the U.S. in 1962. For more than 50 years, these details and many others have kept people’s attention and fueled more theories. Not likely to be shocking Gerald Posner is the author of a 1993 book on the killing “Case Closed.” He says the release of the documents could be embarrassing to people who are still alive. But, he has said he does not think there will be anything shocking in them. But Sabato says the release could help history students understand the events of that time better. He said finally, “researchers will have all the information that the government has had and be able to reevaluate the Kennedy assassination.” The shooting is still in the living memory of millions of people. Census Bureau numbers show that about 49 million Americans were old enough to remember the event in Dallas. Some still have strong feelings about that time. “The proportion of Americans believing in a conspiracy has ranged from 60 percent to 75 percent,” said Sabato. Although many questions have been raised, no clear evidence has been found to show that Oswald did not act alone. Now, there are millions of additional pages for students to study. I’m Mario Ritter.   Pete Heinlein, Jim Malone and Imam Sultan reported this story for VOA News. Mario Ritter adapted it for VOA Learning English with additional materials from AP and Reuters. Hai Do was the editor. _______________________________________________________________ Words in This Story   files –n. one or more related documents kept together conspiracy –n. a plot by at least two people to carry out something assassination –n. the killing of a public official or someone famous conspiracy theories –n. theories about how well-known people are involved in bad or worrying events embarrassing –adj. related to something that causes shame or discomfort redact –v. to delete parts of some written document proportion –n. the amount of something in relation to something else We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments section, and visit our Facebook page.

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'The Furnished Room,' by O. Henry

We present the short story "The Furnished Room," by O. Henry. The story was originally adapted and recorded by the U.S. Department of State.   Restless, always moving, forever passing like time itself, are most of the people who live in these old red houses. This is on New York’s West Side. The people are homeless, yet they have a hundred homes. They go from furnished room to furnished room. They are transients, transients forever—transients in living place, transients in heart and mind. They sing the song, “Home, Sweet Home,” but they sing it without feeling what it means. They can carry everything they own in one small box. They know nothing of gardens. To them, flowers and leaves are something to put on a woman’s hat. The houses of this part of the city have had a thousand people living in them. Therefore each house should have a thousand stories to tell. Perhaps most of these stories would not be interesting. But it would be strange if you did not feel, in some of these houses, that you were among people you could not see. The spirits of some who had lived and suffered there must surely remain, though their bodies had gone. One evening a young man appeared, going from one to another of these big old houses, ringing the doorbell. At the twelfth house, he put down the bag he carried. He cleaned the dust from his face. Then he touched the bell. It sounded far, far away, as if it were ringing deep underground. The woman who owned the house came to the door. The young man looked at her. He thought that she was like some fat, colorless, legless thing that had come up from a hole in the ground, hungrily hoping for something, or someone, to eat. He asked if there was a room that he could have for the night. “Come in,” said the woman. Her voice was soft, but for some reason he did not like it. “I have the back room on the third floor. Do you wish to look at it?” The young man followed her up. There was little light in the halls. He could not see where that light came from. The covering on the floor was old and ragged. There were places in the walls made, perhaps, to hold flowering plants. If this were true, the plants had died long before this evening. The air was bad; no flowers could have lived in it for long. “This is the room,” said the woman in her soft, thick voice. “It’s a nice room. Someone is usually living in it. I had some very nice people in it last summer. I had no trouble with them. They paid on time. The water is at the end of the hall. Sprowls and Mooney had the room for three months. You know them? Theater people. The gas is here. You see there is plenty of space to hang your clothes. It’s a room everyone likes. If you don’t take it, someone else will take it soon.” “Do you have many theater people living here?” asked the young man. “They come and go. Many of my people work in the theater. Yes, sir, this is the part of the city where theater people live. They never stay long any place. They live in all the houses near here. They come and they go.” The young man paid for the room for a week. He was going to stay there, he said, and rest. He counted out the money. The room was all ready, she said. He would find everything that he needed. As she moved away he asked his question. He had asked it already a thousand times. It was always there, waiting to be asked again. “A young girl—Eloise Vashner—do you remember her? Has she ever been in this house? She would be singing in the theater, probably. A girl of middle height, thin, with red-gold hair and a small dark spot on her face near her left eye.” “No, I don’t remember the name. Theater people change names as often as they change their rooms. They come and they go. No, I don’t remember that one.” No. Always no. He had asked his question for five months, and the answer was always no. Every day he questioned men who knew theater people. Had she gone to them to ask for work? Every evening he went to the theaters. He went to good theaters and to bad ones. Some were so bad that he was afraid to find her there. Yet he went to them, hoping. He who had loved her best had tried to find her. She had suddenly gone from her home. He was sure that this great city, this island, held her. But everything in the city was moving, restless. What was on top today, was lost at the bottom tomorrow. The furnished room received the young man with a certain warmth. Or it seemed to receive him warmly. It seemed to promise that here he could rest. There was a bed and there were two chairs with ragged covers. Between the two windows there was a looking-glass about twelve inches wide. There were pictures on the walls. The young man sat down in a chair, while the room tried to tell him its history. The words it used were strange, not easy to understand, as if they were words of many distant foreign countries. There was a floor covering of many colors, like an island of flowers in the middle of the room. Dust lay all around it. There was bright wall-paper on the wall. There was a fireplace. On the wall above it, some bright pieces of cloth were hanging. Perhaps they had been put there to add beauty to the room. This they did not do. And the pictures on the walls were pictures the young man had seen a hundred times before in other furnished rooms. Here and there around the room were small objects forgotten by others who had used the room. There were pictures of theater people, something to hold flowers, but nothing valuable. One by one the little signs grew clear. They showed the young man the others who had lived there before him. In front of the looking-glass there was a thin spot in the floor covering. That told him that women had been in the room. Small finger marks on the wall told of children, trying to feel their way to sun and air. A larger spot on the wall made him think of someone, in anger, throwing something there. Across the looking-glass, some person had written the name, “Marie.” It seemed to him that those who had lived in the furnished room had been angry with it, and had done all they could to hurt it. Perhaps their anger had been caused by the room’s brightness and its coldness. For there was no true warmth in the room. There were cuts and holes in the chairs and in the walls. The bed was half broken. The floor cried out as if in pain when it was walked on. People for a time had called this room “home,” and yet they had hurt it. This was a fact not easy to believe. But perhaps it was, strangely, a deep love of home that was the cause. The people who had lived in the room perhaps never knew what a real home was. But they knew that this room was not a home. Therefore their deep anger rose up and made them strike out. The young man in the chair allowed these thoughts to move one by one, softly, through his mind. At the same time, sounds and smells from other furnished rooms came into his room. He heard someone laughing, laughing in a manner that was neither happy nor pleasant. From other rooms he heard a woman talking too loudly; and he heard people playing games for money; and he heard a woman singing to a baby, and he heard someone weeping. Above him there was music. Doors opened and closed. The trains outside rushed noisily past. Some animal cried out in the night outside. And the young man felt the breath of the house. It had a smell that was more than bad; it seemed cold and sick and old and dying. Then suddenly, as he rested there, the room was filled with the strong, sweet smell of a flower, small and white, named mignonette. The smell came so surely and so strongly that it almost seemed like a living person entering the room. And the man cried aloud: “What, dear?” as if he had been called. He jumped up and turned around. The rich smell was near, and all around him. He opened his arms for it. For a moment he did not know where he was or what he was doing. How could anyone be called by a smell? Surely it must have been a sound. But could a sound have touched him? “She has been in this room,” he cried, and he began to seek some sign of her. He knew that if he found any small thing that had belonged to her, he would know that it was hers. If she had only touched it, he would know it. This smell of flowers that was all around him—she had loved it and had made it her own. Where did it come from? The room had been carelessly cleaned. He found many small things that women had left. Something to hold their hair in place. Something to wear in the hair to make it more beautiful. A piece of cloth that smelled of another flower. A book. Nothing that had been hers. And he began to walk around the room like a dog hunting a wild animal. He looked in corners. He got down on his hands and knees to look at the floor. He wanted something that he could see. He could not realize that she was there beside, around, against, within, above him, near to him, calling him. Then once again he felt the call. Once again he answered loudly: “Yes, dear!” and turned, wild-eyed, to look at nothing. For he could not yet see the form and color and love and reaching arms that were there in the smell of white flowers. Oh, God! Where did the smell of flowers come from? Since when has a smell had a voice to call? So he wondered, and went on seeking. He found many small things, left by many who had used the room. But of her, who may have been there, whose spirit seemed to be there, he found no sign. And then he thought of the owner. He ran from the room, with its smell of flowers, going down and to a door where he could see a light. She came out. He tried to speak quietly. “Will you tell me,” he asked her, “who was in my room before I came here?” “Yes, sir. I can tell you again. It was Sprowls and Mooney, as I said. It was really Mr. and Mrs. Mooney, but she used her own name. Theater people do that.” “Tell me about Mrs. Mooney. What did she look like?” “Black-haired, short and fat. They left here a week ago.” “And before they were here?” “There was a gentleman. Not in the theater business. He didn’t pay. Before him was Mrs. Crowder and her two children. They stayed four months. And before them was old Mr. Doyle. His sons paid for him. He had the room six months. That is a year, and further I do not remember.” He thanked her and went slowly back to his room. The room was dead. The smell of flowers had made it alive, but the smell of flowers was gone. In its place was the smell of the house. His hope was gone. He sat looking at the yellow gaslight. Soon he walked to the bed and took the covers. He began to tear them into pieces. He pushed the pieces into every open space around windows and door. No air, now, would be able to enter the room. When all was as he wished it, he put out the burning gaslight. Then, in the dark, he started the gas again, and he lay down thankfully on the bed. It was Mrs. McCool’s night to go and get them something cold to drink. So she went and came back, and sat with Mrs. Purdy in one of those rooms underground where the women who own these old houses meet and talk. “I have a young man in my third floor back room this evening,” said Mrs. Purdy, taking a drink. “He went up to bed two hours ago.” “Is that true, Mrs. Purdy?” said Mrs. McCool. It was easy to see that she thought this was a fine and surprising thing. “You always find someone to take a room like that. I don’t know how you do it. Did you tell him about it?” “Rooms,” said Mrs. Purdy, in her soft thick voice, “are furnished to be used by those that need them. I did not tell him, Mrs. McCool.” “You are right, Mrs. Purdy. It’s the money we get for the rooms that keeps us alive. You have the real feeling for business. There are many people who wouldn’t take a room like that if they knew. If you told them that someone had died in the bed, and died by their own hand, they wouldn’t enter the room.” “As you say, we have our living to think of,” said Mrs. Purdy. “Yes, it is true. Only one week ago I helped you there in the third floor back room. She was a pretty little girl. And to kill herself with the gas! She had a sweet little face, Mrs. Purdy.” “She would have been called beautiful, as you say,” said Mrs. Purdy, “except for that dark spot she had growing by her left eye. Do fill up your glass again, Mrs. McCool.”   Download activities to help you understand this story here. Now it's your turn to use the words in this story. If a person you loved left you without saying goodbye or telling you where they were going, would you go looking for them? How hard would you try to find them? Let us know in the comments section or on our Facebook page. ______________________________________________________________ QUIZ   ________________________________________________________________ Words in This Story transient(s) – n. a person who does not have a permanent home and who stays in a place for only a short time before going somewhere else garden(s) – n. an area of ground where plants such as flowers or vegetables are grown doorbell – n. a hollow usually cup-shaped metal object that makes a ringing sound when it is hit inside a house or building that is rung usually by pushing a button beside an outside door ragged – adj.  in bad condition especially because of being torn chair(s) – n.  a seat for one person that has a back and usually four legs looking-glass – n. a piece of glass that reflects images wall-paper – n. thick decorative paper used to cover the walls of a room fireplace – n. a specially built place in a room where a fire can be built finger – n. one of the five long parts of the hand that are used for holding things weep(ing) – v. to cry because you are very sad or are feeling some other strong emotion corner(s) – n. the point or area where two lines, edges, or sides of something meet gaslight – n. a device that uses gas as fuel to produce light

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'The Florida Project' Explores the Lives of Poor Kids in Disney's Shadow

Millions of children dream of going to Disney World, the most famous theme park in America. Families travel to the Orlando, Florida site from all around the United States and the world. But many children are too poor to ever get inside the park, even those who live in the neighborhood -- like the group of young characters in the new film, The Florida Project. In the movie, Disney World serves as a symbol of the social divide in the U.S. Most of the young characters are one or both parents. They live in a couple of small motels along a big road near Disney World. Sean Baker is the director of the movie. “My co-screenwriter brought this topic to my attention, the fact  that there are families with children living in budget motels outside of what we consider the happiest place on Earth -- a place for children -- and that juxtaposition obviously grabbed me.” The leader of the somewhat wild, rarely supervised band of children is six-year-old Moonee, played by Brooklynn Prince. “The man who lives in here gets arrested a lot. These are the rooms we’re not supposed to go in -- but let’s go anyway!” Bria Vinaite plays Moonee’s childlike mother Halley. Halley loves her daughter but lacks some basic parenting skills and a job. She turns to prostitution, endangering her daughter and their life together. Vinaite says life is very difficult for the kind of woman she plays in the film. “If you have a daughter who you have to take care of, a roof to put over her head, food, and then, on top of that, you have to take care of yourself. And it’s just like, I feel like in her situation, her concerns are not even important to her. It’s about Moonee.” Actor Willem Dafoe plays Bobby, caretaker of the motel. He tries to help the children stay out of trouble. He is both their disciplinarian and protector. At one point in the film, Bobby criticizes Moonie’s mother. “When your friend puts you in charge of her kid, that kid becomes your responsibility.” Bobby is based on a real motel caretaker in Florida. Director Baker said when Dafoe got the part, he wanted to fully understand the world created in the movie. Baker said Dafoe came to the set a week early. He interviewed the motel owner and others. And then, Baker said “one day, he comes to the set and he has this spray tan on, and he had all kinds of accessories he chose building this Florida man as his character.” Baker said the film shows Americans struggling to survive. He made the movie after he watched The Little Rascals series of short films from the 1920s and 1930s. The series is about a group of neighborhood kids getting into trouble. They show how children dealt with poverty during the period of American economic failure known as the Great Depression. Director Baker said he found Vinaite on the social media site Instagram. She and Brooklynn Prince had never acted before. Vinaite said she had not known before the movie that there were single mothers who struggled so much and were so close to homelessness. She said Baker drove her around Orlando to meet some of the women who lived in the budget motels. Vinaite said she returned to her hotel room and cried. Brooklynn Prince said when she watched the film, she felt the pain of the characters. “I cry at the end too, like on the screen. I cry. I cried just watching it.” I’m Caty Weaver.   VOA Entertainment Correspondent Penelope Poulou reported this story. Christopher Jones-Cruise adapted the report for Learning English. Caty Weaver was the editor. We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section, or visit our Facebook page. ________________________________________________________________ Words in This Story   theme – n.  the subject or idea on which the style of something (such as an event or place) is based​ character – n.  a person who appears in a story, book, play, movie, or television show​ prostitution – n. the act of having sex in exchange for money​ disciplinarian – n. a person who acts to make sure that rules or orders are obeyed​ spray tan – n. a beauty product to temporarily make one's skin darker, as if the sun has done so accessories – n. something added to something else to make it more useful, attractive, or effective​ topic – n. subject grab – v.  to get or be given ​ juxtaposition – n. to place (different things) together in order to create an interesting effect or to show how they are the same or different​ screen – n. a large, flat, white surface on which images or movies are shown​  

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Spain Dismisses Catalonia Government after Independence Declaration

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has dismissed Catalonia’s government and called for a new election. The move came shortly after Catalonia’s parliament passed a measure declaring independence from Spain. Rajoy announced the dismissals after a special cabinet meeting to discuss how to respond to Catalonia’s independence declaration. He said he was also removing the head of Catalonia’s regional police, shutting its foreign affairs department and dismissing its delegates in Brussels and Madrid.   The Spanish government moves are likely to meet fierce opposition in Catalonia, where thousands have been celebrating the independence vote. Rajoy said “we never wanted to come to this point.” He added that the aim of the measures is “to return (Catalonia) to normality and legality as soon as possible.” Spain considers Catalan moves to create an independent state a violation of the country's constitution. In a message on Twitter, Catalan regional President Carles Puigdemont continued to propose peaceful means to resolve the crisis. “Dialogue has been, and will always be, our choice to solve political situations and achieve peaceful solutions,” he wrote. Catalan supporters of independence gathered near the parliament building in Barcelona to celebrate Friday’s vote. News of the latest government actions was met with loud jeers and whistles.   Demonstrators cheered officials and lawmakers and called for the Spanish flag to be removed from atop the parliament. Some said, “we are not moving.” Catalonia has long sought independence from Spain. Catalan leaders held an independence referendum on October 1. They said the results gave them a clear mandate to declare independence. Spain’s government and Constitutional Court declared the referendum illegal. I’m Bryan Lynn.   Bryan Lynn wrote this story for VOA Learning English, based on reports from VOA News, the Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse. Hai Do was the editor. We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments section, and visit our Facebook page. ________________________________________________________________   Words in This Story   authority – n. official power to give orders or make decisions impose – v. officially order something to happen jeer – n. insulting words shouted at someone referendum – n. election in which people in an area vote for or against an issue of public concern mandate – n. approval of a large part of the population  

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What It Takes - George Lucas

00:00:02     OPRAH WINFREY: "Hattie Mae, this child is gifted," and I heard that enough that I started to believe it.   00:00:08     ROGER BANNISTER: If you have the opportunity, not a perfect opportunity, and you don't take it, you may never have another chance.   00:00:14     LAURYN HILL: It all was so clear. It was just, like, the picture started to form itself.   00:00:19     DESMOND TUTU: There was no way in which a lie could prevail over the truth, darkness over light, death over life.   00:00:32     CAROL BURNETT (quoting CARRIE HAMILTON): “Every day I wake up and decide, today I'm going to love my life. Decide.”   00:00:35     JOHNNY CASH: My advice is, if they're going to break your leg once when you go in that place, stay out of there.   00:00:40     JAMES MICHENER: And then along come these differential experiences that you don't look for, you don't plan for, but boy, you’d better not miss them.   00:00:51     GEORGE LUCAS: I grew up in a small town in Central California. It was a farming community. We had a couple of movie theaters. You'd go to the movies once in a while. I grew up before television, so I didn't really discover film, or even any interest in film, until I was, like, a junior in college.   00:01:08     ALICE WINKLER: But that, my listening friends, is the guy who created the biggest movie phenomenon of all time. In this episode of What It Takes from the Academy of Achievement, the force behind “the Force” — George Lucas. I’m Alice Winkler.    00:01:40     George Lucas recorded two interviews for the Academy of Achievement’s archive, one in 1995 and one in 1999. I’ll play you excerpts from both in this episode, but also a clip from a speech he made to students at an Academy gathering in 2014, where he revealed the true meaning of “the dark side” and “the light side.” It will lead you to greater happiness. So listen carefully.   00:02:08     And then, you know, follow us on Twitter @WhatItTakesNow for even more happiness. But this story begins about 20 years before George Lucas dreamed up Darth Vader, before he changed the art of animation, before he pioneered the transition of film from celluloid to digital. It begins back in Modesto, California, where George Lucas was not watching TV or movies much. His dad ran a stationery store, and he fantasized about a much faster life in cars.   00:02:42     GEORGE LUCAS: When I was young, from at least my teenage years, they were completely devoted to cars, and that was the most important thing in my life from about the ages of 14 to 20.   00:02:56     ALICE WINKLER: Lucas was, in his own words, a consummate underachiever. He didn’t care about school. He had plans to be a mechanic and a racecar driver, but then he got in an accident, a terrible accident.   00:03:10     GEORGE LUCAS:  The thing with the auto accident, I was a terrible student in high school, and the thing that the auto accident did — and it happened just as I graduated, so I was at this sort of crossroads, but it made me apply myself more because I realized more than anything else what a thin thread we hang on in life, and I really wanted to make something out of my life.   00:03:31     And I was in an accident that, in theory, no one could survive, so it was like, "Well, I'm here, and every day now is an extra day. I've been given an extra day, so I’ve got to make the most of it," and then the next day is, “I've been given two extra days.” And I've sort of — you can't help in that situation but get into a mindset like that, which is, you've been given this gift, and every single day is a gift. And I wanted to make the most of it.   00:04:04     ALICE WINKLER: So he went to a junior college and fell for anthropology and sociology, fields that explore why people do what they do. He had always had a talent for art and for building things, and somehow, suddenly, all his likes and all his talents came together in one place, and that place was film. So he transferred to the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts.   00:04:31     GEORGE LUCAS: When I look back on it now, if I'd have gone to art school or if I'd have gone on to another university that I was planning to go to and, you know, study anthropology, I probably would have ended up back in film. No matter which route I would have taken, I'm almost positive I would have ended up eventually in film. So mostly I just followed my inner feelings and passions and said, "I like this, and I like this," and I just kept going to where it got warmer and warmer until it finally got hot, and then that's where I was.   00:05:01     ALICE WINKLER: Still, when he started to tell the people in his life about his plans, they tried to talk him out of it. He wasn’t related to anyone in the film industry, didn't have any good contacts, and that was the traditional way in back in his day. But as Han Solo would later say, "Never tell me the odds." Lucas set his sights on getting through film school.   00:05:24     GEORGE LUCAS: And when I was in film school, the big issue was getting to make a movie: "When are we going to get to make a movie?" Well, in my very first class, which was an animation class, they gave us 32 feet of 16-millimeter film, which was exactly one minute of film, and they said, "Here, test the camera. See how it goes up and down and what happens when you move the things around, and learn how to use the camera," this big animation camera. It was a giant crane. And I turned it into a movie. I turned it into a one-minute movie. I put a soundtrack on it. It got entered into a lot of film festivals.   00:05:54     It won zillions of film festivals. It kind of revolutionized a kind of animation of what is — what then was called kinestasis, which is doing fast movements sort of over photographs and that sort of thing. And I said, "This is great," and all the other students said, "Well, how did you do that?" I said, "I just did it. They gave me a little, tiny piece of film. I made a movie out of it." And I kept doing that, and all the other students would sit around the campus saying, "I wish I could make a movie. I wish they'd let me do this in this class. I wish — " You know, if somebody gave me a hundred feet of film, I made a movie out of it.   00:06:27     And the other kids basically didn't. They had the same hundred feet of film. They had the same camera, and they just said, "When am I ever going to get to make a movie?" And I just kept making them.                            00:06:37     ALICE WINKLER: As the sage Yoda would say, "Do or do not. There is no try." George Lucas realized at film school that he’d found the thing he was really good at and could lose himself in, the kind of thing he could do from nine in the morning until ten at night without glancing even at the clock, and he was not about to be deterred.   00:07:02     GEORGE LUCAS: You know, it's very important that you find something that you care about, that you have a deep passion for, because you're going to have to devote a lot of your life to it, and you're going to have to really be focused on it. And you're really going to have to overcome a lot of hurdles, a lot of people saying you can't do it. You're going to have to take a lot of risks, and you have to find something that you love enough to be able to take those risks, to be able to jump over the hurdles, to be able to break through the brick walls, that you're going to — that are always going to be placed in front of you.   00:07:27     If you don't have that kind of feeling for what it is you're doing, you'll stop at the first giant hurdle. So I think — and you'll never make it unless you persevere, unless you overcome a lot of very difficult obstacles.   00:07:38     ALICE WINKLER: Put succinctly by Qui-Gon Jinn, "Your focus determines your reality."   00:07:45     GEORGE LUCAS: And the secret is just not to give up hope, and it's very hard not to because if you're really doing something worthwhile, I think you will be pushed to the brink of hopelessness before you come through the other side. And you just have to hang in through that. When I — well, first of all, when I went into film school, everybody said, you know, "What are you doing? This is kind of a complete dead end for a career," because nobody had ever made it from a film school into the actual film industry.   00:08:16     You just — you know, maybe you go to work for Lockheed or some industrial company to do industrial films, but nobody actually made it into the entertainment business. I had no interest in going into the entertainment business, so I didn't really care. I was more interested in just doing films, going back to San Francisco, doing, you know, experimental films and that sort of thing, and maybe making documentaries and that sort of thing. So I wasn't — I didn't care.   00:08:42     Then I finished school. I went to San Francisco, and everybody said, "Why are you going to San Francisco?" I said, "That's where I live," and they said, "You can't possibly work in the film business living in San Francisco." And I said, "Well, that's — I want to live where I want to live, and I will make films because I love to make films." And I struggled. I mean it took me years to get my first film off the ground, and as I talk to film students now, especially, I say, "The easiest job you'll ever get is to try to make your first film."   00:09:10     Because that's the easy one to get, is the first film, because nobody knows whether you can make a film or not. You've made a bunch of little projects. You've shown off you have talent, and you talk real fast, and you convinced somebody that you should be doing a feature, and they let you do a feature. After you've done that feature, then you really have a heck of a difficult time getting your second film off the ground, because then they look at your first film and they go, "Oh, well, we don't want you anymore."   00:09:37     So I tell struggling kids who think it's very, very difficult to get your first feature off the ground that that's a piece of cake. It's the second one that you have a problem with, and it took me three, four years to get my — from my first film to my second film, of banging on doors, trying to get people to give me a chance. You know, writing, struggling, with no money in the bank, and, you know, working as an editor on the side, working as a cameraman on the side, getting little jobs, eking out a living, trying to stay alive, and pushing a script that nobody wanted.   00:10:14     MUSIC: SINCE I DON'T HAVE YOU   00:10:14     I don't have plans and schemes And I don't have hopes and dreams   00:10:26     GEORGE LUCAS: Finally I managed to get that film made, which was American Graffiti, and then after that was a huge success, it was not as difficult anymore. But, my first six years in the business was hopeless, and there are a lot of times when you sit and you say, "Why am I doing this? I'll never make it. It's just not going to happen. It's just — you know, I should really go out and get a real job and try to survive, and — " You know, because I'd borrowed money from my parents.   00:10:53     I'd borrowed money from my friends. I was sort of — you know, it didn't look like I was ever going to actually be able to pay anybody back, which is part of living. You do have to eat, pay rent, and pay back your friends who are supporting you.   00:11:07     MUSIC: SINCE I DON'T HAVE YOU   00:11:07     I don’t have happiness and I guess   00:11:14     ALICE WINKLER: I want to go through this early filmography for a minute, before Star Wars, before Indiana Jones — let's not forget that one. The first feature film George Lucas made, in 1971, was THX 1138, a dystopian sci-fi tale starring Robert Duvall.   00:11:34     MALE VOICE: You have asked "Are we happy? Are we happy and effective?” Consultation with leading experts in the field makes it perfectly clear, perfectly clear, that we are all now programmed for perfect happiness, perfect happiness.   00:11:53     ALICE WINKLER: THX 1138 grew out of a student project Lucas had made at USC. It got “meh” reviews and kind of bombed at the box office, which is one of the reasons it took Lucas quite awhile to get the next one made. By the way, THX 1138 did later develop a cult following, and here’s one of the important things to know about it. Francis Ford Coppola produced it. Coppola also produced Lucas’s next film, American Graffiti. If you haven’t seen it or don’t remember it, American Graffiti is pure nostalgia, set in 1962 in the teenage, car-obsessed, rock-and-roll culture George Lucas grew up in.   00:12:36     It captures that very American moment just before the Civil Rights Movement and the women’s movement and the Vietnam War, when everything would change, including Hollywood. American Graffiti featured some little-known actors, like Richard Dreyfuss, and Harrison Ford as the out-of-town drag racer in a cowboy hat.   00:12:59     BOB FALFA: Hey, you're supposed to be the fastest thing in the valley, man! But that can't be your car. That must be your momma's car. I feel embarrassed to be this close to you!   00:13:08     JOHN: Yeah, well, I'm not surprised you're driving a field car!   00:13:10     BOB FALFA: Field car? What's a field car?   00:13:13     ALICE WINKLER: The movie is a series of vignettes, really, with great, classic '50s music and not too much plot. George Lucas had a hell of a time getting it written.   00:13:24     GEORGE LUCAS: I was still struggling with my I-don't-want-to-be-a-writer syndrome.   00:13:27     ALICE WINKLER: His friend and producer Francis Coppola told him, "If you're going to make it in this business and you want to be a director, you're going to have to learn how to write, so you're going to have to write your own script."   00:13:40     GEORGE LUCAS: That was a very dark period for me, so I sat down myself and wrote the screenplay. And the most difficult part was, during the writing of the screenplay, I kept getting phone calls from producers saying, "You know, I hear you're great — " I had made a film called THX, which had no story and no character, really. It was kind of an avant-garde film. And so I had all these producers calling me saying, "I hear you're really good at material that doesn't have a story. I've got a record album I want you to make into a movie."   00:14:07     Or — you know, things like that, and they were offering me a lot of money, and — but they were terrible projects.   00:14:18     ALICE WINKLER: Again, Yoda comes to mind here: "Fear is the path to the dark side."   00:14:24     GEORGE LUCAS: And so I had to constantly turn down vast sums of money, while I was starving, writing a screenplay for free that I didn't like to write because I hated writing; but I did finish it, and I did write the screenplay, and eventually I got a deal to make the movie.   00:14:40     You know, when the times are hard like that you simply have to say, "This is what I want to do. I want to make my movie. I don't want to take the money." And you just walk forward, step by step, and get through it somehow, and I got through. It actually only took me about three weeks to write that script, and I just every day would sit down at eight o’clock in the morning, and I'd write until about eight o’clock at night, and I just said, "I am going to finish this, as painful as it is."   00:15:05     ALICE WINKLER: But despite his resolve, George Lucas said, writing continued to remain the most daunting task for him as a filmmaker, but also the most important.   00:15:17     GEORGE LUCAS: Because the whole core of the idea of making a movie starts with the script and starts with the idea, and if you can do that, you are your own studio. Nobody can stop you because all you need is a pencil and a tablet, or a laptop, or whatever, and you're on your way.   00:15:33     ALICE WINKLER: Journalists Gail Eichenthal and Irv Drasnin, who both interviewed Lucas for the Academy of Achievement, tried to get him to describe his process.   00:15:43     GEORGE LUCAS:  My struggle is there's a movie there. I can see it, only I can't see it in order, and I can't see it very clearly, and the struggle is to try to — you sort of look through the fog, and suddenly there is a scene or two. Then you put it down, and then you go through, and there's more fog, and you — and pieces aren't always in the right place, and you begin to realize, "Oh, this piece goes over here. That piece goes over there," and you begin to see it as a whole thing.   00:16:10     Also, you might not see it very clearly. In the case of Star Wars, I saw it. I do several drafts, and it became clearer and clearer. There are certain themes and ideas and images that sort of came in and fit, but a lot of the connecting stuff didn't. I couldn't figure out exactly how the story worked. But if you stay at it long enough and work at it hard enough, you can actually see the movie, and once you've got that part done, and you finished the screenplay and you looked at it, the movie — I could run the movie in my head.   00:16:39     And I've already seen the movie, so when I direct the movie, or I go to cut the movie, or anything, I already know what the movie looks like. And the difficulty is, is the real movie doesn't end up as good as the movie in your head, and there's a big — a lot of frustration about the compromises you have to make or things that didn't turn out the way they're supposed to turn out. You have to live with a lot of that, and you have to learn — even in writing, you have to learn that once you start writing something, the characters begin to talk back to you.   00:17:07     And once you've set up situations, they start telling you the story, and you can't start telling them what to do because they won't do it. They say, "I am not that character. I don't do that. I do this," and it leads you along a different path. So you get these sort of flashes of images of various scenes and moments and everything, and then you get the characters sort of walking in the scenes, because once the characters become alive, it takes a little while for them to become real enough to have an opinion about things.   00:17:36     But once they have an opinion about things, you sort of sit back and watch the movie, and that's how you get to the final draft of the script.   00:17:43     ALICE WINKLER: Despite the little moments of magic George Lucas is describing here, filmmaking, he says, is not very glamorous at all. Mostly, it's just extremely hard work.   00:17:55     GEORGE LUCAS: You know, it's not a matter of how well can you make a movie. It's how well can you make it under the circumstances, because there are always circumstances, and you cannot use that as an excuse. You can't put a title card at the head of the movie and say, "Well, we had a really bad problem. You know, the actor got sick, and it rained this day, and we had a hurricane," and, you know, you can't — "The cameras broke down." You can't do that. You simply have to show them the movie, and it's got to work, and there are no excuses.   00:18:24     ALICE WINKLER: And the logistics aren’t the only hard part, as Lucas often cautions aspiring filmmakers who ask him how to get into “the biz.”   00:18:32     GEORGE LUCAS: It always comes up, you know, "What do you do? What do you do?" I say, "Well, learning to make films is very easy. Learning what to make films about is very hard, and what you’ve really got to do is focus on learning as much about life and about the various aspects of it first, and then learn just the techniques of making a movie because that stuff you can pick up pretty quickly, but having a really good understanding of history, literature, psychology, and sciences is very, very important to actually being able to make movies.”   00:19:08     ALICE WINKLER: Worthwhile ones, anyway. Some of the things George Lucas knew a lot about were anthropology and mythology, outer space, and fast vehicles. Mm-hmm. Before American Graffiti had even come out, he started planning and writing his next project, a modern mythology for younger audiences.  Cue the Star Wars theme.   00:19:42     GEORGE LUCAS: I ended up in a funny situation, where I had written a screenplay, but the screenplay was so big that I couldn't possibly make it into a movie. So I went down, and I said, "Okay, well, I'll get rid of the first two-thirds of it." That's a two — the second two acts, "And I'll just do the first act. I can make that into a movie. That's sort of big enough," but then I had all this other work that I'd done. I'd spent a whole year doing this, and I said, "You know, I'm not going to give this up. I will make all three movies, and I'll make this into three movies. That's the way I'm going to do it."   00:20:11     I won't just put this on the shelf and forget it and say, "Okay, I am doing this movie." And at that point, I made a pact with myself that I was going to make all three movies. And in order to do that, as I started to make my deal with 20th Century Fox, I acquired the sequel rights, because I didn’t want them to bury the sequel. I wanted to make these movies, and I was determined to make these movies regardless of whether they wanted to or the movie made any money or not.   00:20:38     ALICE WINKLER: Science fiction was not something that did well at the box office, which seems hard to imagine now, since the Star Wars films are woven so tightly into the fabric of our culture, but when George Lucas was trying to sell the studios on the idea, he kept hitting brick walls again. Their lack of faith, in the words of Darth Vader, “is disturbing.”     00:21:02     GEORGE LUCAS: You know, the executives could only think in terms of what they’ve seen, and it's hard for them to think in terms of what has never been done before. It dealt with robots and Wookiees and things that, generally, most people — they couldn't read it and say, "I understand what this is all about." They just were completely confused by it.   00:21:26     And really, on top of that, it was aimed at being a young — a film for young people, and most of the studios said, "Look, that's Disney's. Disney does that. The rest of us can't do that, so we don't want to get in that area." So I had so many strikes against me when I did that, I was lucky that I found a studio executive that just believed in me as a filmmaker and just disregarded the material itself.   00:21:51     ALICE WINKLER: Lucas had the confidence of his convictions and a vision for what these films would be, so to make sure he would have the financial means to make all three films, he came up with the “merchandise idea,” as he called it. Until 1977, movies were not released with licensed action figures, Happy Meal toys, special edition LEGO kits; and no matter whether you think of that stuff as trash or treasure, all roads lead to George Lucas. It sounds contrary to logic, but he came up with the merchandise idea to avoid being commercial, to avoid being beholden to the Hollywood studios.   00:22:32     GEORGE LUCAS: Everything is sort of a struggle, again, to survive, which is, the studio won't put enough money into your movie to get it into the theaters, to do the advertising, so I said, "Well, I can't — I don't have any money. I don't have any, but I can maybe make a T-shirt deal, and I can maybe make a poster deal, and I can maybe get these out at science fiction conventions and things before the movie comes out and promote the movie." So I did it as sort of self-preservation.   00:22:58     I'm a San Francisco filmmaker. I'm an independent filmmaker. I don't have a lot of resources, so I really have to think about how I'm going to get not only through this movie but hopefully have it make enough money to allow me to get to do the next movie. And as it turned out, the film was so successful we were able to make toy deals, and we began to start the whole idea of action figures, of tie-ins, of toys that go along with movies.   00:23:24     And over the years, that's one of the things that's helped me stay independent, be able to finance my own movies, and stay in business, really.   00:23:32     ALICE WINKLER: "In my experience, there is no such thing as luck." That one from Obi-Wan Kenobi.   00:23:39     GEORGE LUCAS: You know, it's — and I've gotten myself into a position where I can more or less experiment using my own resources, and if I fail, I fail. That's the reason that I've generated the money in the first place, is to be able to try things, and if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. I like making movies. I mean I like the process. I like trying out new ideas.   00:24:00     There's nothing worse than the frustration of having somebody who you feel doesn't get what you're doing trying to turn it into something else. I think for most creative people, they don't like others looking over their shoulder saying, you know, "Why don't you make that green? Why don't you make that blue? Why are you doing this? Why are you doing that? I don't like that. Don't put that in there." You know, I want to — you know, it's sort of like Michelangelo and the pope, in terms of doing the Sistine Chapel. It's a very irritating thing, and I'm sure Michelangelo was very irritated with the pope.   00:24:35     ALICE WINKLER: Another way that George Lucas was able to maintain his independence as a filmmaker was by having other independent filmmakers as friends. His circle famously included Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, and Brian De Palma. They came of age, more or less, in the 1960s and were determined to do things in new ways for a new era.   00:24:59     GEORGE LUCAS: I guess the advantage that my generation had is, when we were in film school, and we were starting in the film business, the door was absolutely locked, and it was a very, very high wall, and nobody got in. Therefore, all of us beggars and scroungers down at the front gate decided that if we didn't sort of band together, we wouldn't survive, and that if one could make it, that one would help all the others make it, and we would continue to help each other, so we banded together.   00:25:27     I mean that's how cavemen figured it out. Any society begins by realizing that together, by helping each other, you can survive better than if you fight each other and compete with each other. And my friends and I, even though we have become successful, part of the reason we became successful is that we were always helping each other. If I got a job, I would help somebody else get a job. If somebody got more successful than me, it was partly my success. I wasn't — my success wasn't based on how I could push down everybody that was around me.   00:25:58     My success was based on how much I could push everybody up, and eventually they — their success was the same way, and in the process they pushed me up, and I pushed them up, and we kept doing that, and we still do that. And even though we all have, in essence, competing companies, the key to it is to have everybody succeed, not to gloat over somebody else's failure. And that's what's helped us along, and we continue to do that, and we do it with younger filmmakers.   00:26:26     And there's no way of getting through any kind of an endeavor without help from friends, and trying to be the number one person, ultimately, is a losing proposition. You never know in life when you're going to need help, and you never know whom you're going to need it from.   00:26:45     ALICE WINKLER: "Somebody has to save our skins," in other words — that one from Princess Leia Organa.   00:26:51     GEORGE LUCAS: I mean it's one of the basic motifs of fairy tales, is that you find the poor, unfortunate along the side of the road, and when they beg for help, if you give it to them, you end up succeeding. If you don't give it to them, you end up being turned into a frog or something. And it's not just a kind of public service thing. It's a way of life. It makes — you know, it helps you personally, but it also — you know, it's a good business decision. Let's put it that way.   00:27:19     ALICE WINKLER: A very good business decision, if the careers of Lucas, Spielberg, De Palma, Scorsese and Coppola are any indication, each wildly successful in turn. When George Lucas's number came up, how did he handle it?   00:27:34     GEORGE LUCAS: Success is a very difficult thing. It's much more difficult than one might think, and when I first had a successful movie, which was American Graffiti, fortunately it wasn't — it was huge, but it wasn't so huge in terms of monetary things, and it came so slowly that I was able to assimilate it a little bit. Star Wars was much more difficult, and I had a lot of friends who had been very — had become very successful, and they said, "Boy, watch out. Boy, when that one hits, you're really going to be thrown for a loop."   00:28:05     I said, "Oh, no, no. I went through American Graffiti. I can handle this. I know — " But when Star Wars finally — you know, the reality of it hit and all of the attendant things that go on around it hit — psychologically, it's a very, very difficult thing to cope with. And it's hard to explain exactly what happens psychologically, because a lot of the constraints that you've had are now gone.   00:28:29     Instead of scrambling to find one opportunity somewhere to do something, you suddenly have an endless supply of opportunities to do anything. Yeah! So — because the first thing you do — and I've seen it with a lot of people — is, you know, you go out and you say yes to everything, because it's all wonderful, wonderful things that are offered to you. And here you've spent your whole life just begging and, you know, using every means at your disposal to get one person or two people to say yes to your project or to say, "Yes, I'll do this. Yes!"   00:28:59     And then suddenly everybody says yes. Suddenly everybody wants you to do everything and anything you want, and it's — then you have to start learning how to say no. And tons of opportunities coming your way, wonderful opportunities, and you just — but you can't do them all. If you start doing them all, your life gets very unfocused. You get overwhelmed, and you collapse, basically.   00:29:23     ALICE WINKLER: Lucas says that the wave of invincibility turned into a morass of depression. It’s just the price of success, he believes. Everyone thinks they're going to be able to handle it if it happens to them, but they can’t. So here’s what George Lucas figured out that helps him.   00:29:40     GEORGE LUCAS: I've made it a habit, that I still keep, when a movie comes out. I always go off on a beach so I miss all the craziness that goes on, all the — you know, the hoopla and the hype and the success and how much it's making or whether it's doing good or whether it's doing bad. I just miss it all. I just go off on a beach. I don't talk to anybody, and a couple of weeks later I come back and it's all over with. And so, I heard the results, but I didn't have to live through them.   00:30:08     ALICE WINKLER: George Lucas didn’t write or direct the latest Star Wars installment, The Force Awakens. He really had little to do with it, in fact. Remember, he sold Lucasfilm to Disney in 2012, giving them the rights to do what they wanted with the saga, but if you happen to be on a beach vacation during the week Star Wars VII is released, keep your eye out for the man with the thick silver hair and beard who is avoiding the newspapers, the reviews, and the photos of people dressed up in Star Wars regalia, lining up around the block to buy tickets.     00:30:43     George Lucas might well be lying on a lounge chair, listening to the waves, happy to avoid the hoopla of the moment, but what he cannot avoid is the hoopla that’s unfolded over his creation for the past 40 years, which brings us to the topic of Lucas's legacy. Journalists Irv Drasnin and Gail Eichenthal, who interviewed the filmmaker for the Academy of Achievement, asked which of his many contributions he thinks will have the most lasting impact.   00:31:15     GEORGE LUCAS: On the professional side, I've helped move cinema from a chemical-based medium to a digital-based medium — I guess that'll be one of the landmarks. And then I've left these stories, these little tales that have been imprinted on the media, you know — I guess it'll be digital by the time it's finished — which, you know, will or will not be of interest to people in the future.   00:31:47     I've done the best I can. They've obviously made a big mark while I'm here, but the interesting thing you find out if you study history is that, you know, you can make a huge mark during your lifetime and, you know, a lifetime later it's forgotten. And you make something that you don't think is very important during your lifetime and you'll — you know, it lasts for a thousand years. So you can't really focus too much on that part of it because you really don't know what history is going to throw at you in terms of what's important and what's not important.   00:32:17     ALICE WINKLER: And one last line from Han Solo: "Great, kid. Don't get cocky." George Lucas hopes that his philanthropic efforts will be part of what history deems important. Lucas is the wealthiest person in the film business, according to Forbes magazine, and he’s also one of the most generous. He has already given away a substantial fortune to educational causes, and he’s pledged to give away the four billion dollars he made in the sale of Lucasfilm to Disney. But among the gifts Lucas has given the world is a modern day mythology with an important lesson for all time.   00:32:57     He laid it out beautifully when he concluded his speech to students at the Academy of Achievement Summit in 2014, so I will end this episode of What It Takes with his words.   00:33:11     GEORGE LUCAS: If you keep your eyes wide open and don't have prejudices about what you're going to do, and you follow your bliss or your passion or whatever it is, even if it's stupid, like you can't possibly get a good job there, “I don't wanna go there,” you know, all these kinds of — you know, because in the end, I got — my dad wanted me to go work in his store. He was a guy that did stationery and stuff, and I said, "I'm never going to do that. I'll tell you one thing for sure. I will never run a company, ever."   00:33:46     I'm a filmmaker. I'm a — you know, I'm a creative person. I only want to be creative. And so in the end, I followed all these paths, and because I needed to make sure I controlled the vision, and not have it be deluded by a lot of other people, I ended up with a company, and the company was successful, and the movies were successful, and, you know, I ended up running a big, giant company with thousands of people, and — but now I'm still following my thing, and I've sold my company.   00:34:13     I've retired. I'm doing little — the little art films I was going to do originally, and just putting my own money in it. My friends, they get rich. They buy yachts, and I said, "Well, I'm going to take all the money I would use to buy the yacht, and I'm going to put it in a bank account, and then I'm just going to piss it away on making movies, and nobody will ever see them."   00:34:30     And so I don't have to worry about anybody saying anything. So that's where I am now, and that's how you make it work. You never know where you're going to end up, but you have to be open about it, and you have to follow your passion, and you'll go someplace. And if you're following your passion, you don't have to get rich. I happened to get rich, but that was by accident, and now I have the joy of giving it all away because I didn’t want it in the first place.   00:34:54     So it's like, you get yourself stable, and everything seems to work out. But if you're looking for fame and money and all those things, you'll never find it, and if you do find it, you'll never be happy. The secret, ultimately, which was the bottom line of Star Wars and the other movies, is, there are two kinds of people in the world, compassionate people and selfish people. Selfish people live on the dark side. The compassionate people live on the light side.   00:35:23     And if you go to the side of light, you will be happy because compassion, helping other people, not thinking about yourself, that gives you a joy that you can't get any other way. Being selfish, following your pleasures, always buying things and doing stuff, you're always going to be unhappy. You'll never get to the point. You'll get this little instant shot of pleasure, but it goes away, and then you're stuck where you were before, and the more you do it, the worse it gets.   00:35:53     You finally get everything you want, and you're miserable because there's no — there's nothing at the end of that road. Whereas if you are compassionate and you get to the end of the road, you've helped so many people, thousands of people you may have helped, you may have stopped from suffering or anything, that gives you a very warm feeling. Thank you very much.   00:36:17     ALICE WINKLER: George Lucas. This is What It Takes, and our Twitter handle is @WhatItTakesNow. Please make sure to follow us to learn about upcoming episodes and to get great bite-sized bits of info that don't make it into the podcast. Tremendous thanks, as always, to the Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation for making What It Takes possible. I’m Alice Winkler.  

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October 27, 2017

A look at the best news photos from around the world.

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English @ the Movies: 'Take Back'

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Non-Governmental Organizations Call for Action in Cambodia

  A group of 55 non-governmental organizations published a letter Monday calling for a new Paris Peace Conference because of a “severe deterioration in the state of human rights and democracy” in Cambodia. The letter was released on the 26th anniversary of the Paris Peace agreements that ended conflict in the Southeast Asian country. The NGOs called on United Nations General Secretary Antonio Guterres, Indonesian President Joko Widodo, and French President Emmanuel Macron to take “decisive action.” The agreements ended war between Cambodia and Vietnam in 1991. They permitted the United Nations to control Cambodia’s government as the country created a system of democratic elections. The letter noted that countries that signed the accord are required to consult with members of the Paris Conference if the agreements are not being upheld. The NGOs wrote, “We respectfully submit that your obligation to take concrete action under the Paris Peace Agreements has now been triggered as a result of the severe deterioration in the state of human rights and democracy in Cambodia in recent weeks and months.” Last month, Cambodian police arrested opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) chief Kem Sokha. They charged him with treason. They said he was working with the United States to overthrow the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP). Critics say the arrest shows Prime Minister Hun Sen strengthening his attacks on political opponents as the country prepares for a national election next July. Since Kem Sokha’s arrest, about 20 CNRP lawmakers, along with deputy presidents Mu Sochua and Eng Chhay Eang and party activists, have fled Cambodia. Hun Sen has threatened to shut down the opposition and give its seats in parliament and its commune councilor positions to parties that support the government. Since August, the government has expelled the U.S.-funded NGO the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and suspended the operations of 20 radio stations that broadcast reports and programs by U.S. broadcasters Radio Free Asia and Voice of America. It also told the English-language Cambodia Daily newspaper that it must pay a large tax. The newspaper was forced to close. In the letter, the 55 NGOs said that unless things change, the vote next year “has no chance of legitimacy.” They called for the Paris Conference to meet again “for an emergency summit to discuss the state of Cambodian democracy” and ways to convince Cambodia’s government to change its policies. Phil Robertson is the deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch. He released a statement that was added to the letter. He noted that the United States, the United Nations and international groups have spent billions of dollars to support Cambodia’s democratic development. He said it is concerning that the international community has remained largely silent about the actions of Hun Sen. He urged the nations that signed the Paris agreements to “stop Hun Sen from making his destruction of democracy and disregard for human rights the new normal for Cambodia.” Prison letter CNRP chief Kem Sokha wrote a letter from prison that was published Monday on his Facebook page. He said he supported the calls for signatories of the Peace Accords to gather for an urgent meeting about Cambodia. He said his country’s government “has been marching against the spirit of the Paris Peace Accords.” The CNRP leader added that “issuing statements alone is not enough,” and urged members of the international community to “take actual measures” to prevent the government from “victimizing” the Cambodian people. Hun Sen reacts Hun Sen has dismissed suggestions that his government had violated the Peace Accords. The prime minister said that calling for the signatories of the agreement to meet again was “outdated and cannot be realized” because four Cambodian political parties that were present at the time “would have to be recreated.” He said, “now there is only a single Cambodian [political] party and that is my legitimate government here.” I’m Kaveh Razaei. And I'm Dorothy Gundy.   This story was reported by Radio Free Asia’s Khmer Service. It was translated by Sovannarith Keo and written in English by Joshua Lipes. Christopher Jones-Cruise adapted the report for Learning English. Ashley Thompson was the editor. We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section, or visit our Facebook page. ______________________________________________________________ Words in This Story   deterioration – n. the action or process of breaking down; becoming worse consult – v. to advise submit – v. to propose; to put forward concrete – adj. identifying something real or a group of things trigger – v. to release or cause legitimacy – n. the quality of being lawful or rightful summit – n. a meeting or conference convince – v. to persuade signatory – n. a nation, organization or person that has signed an official document

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October 26, 2017

A look at the best news photos from around the world.

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Pope Francis Makes Phone Call to Outer Space

  Here's What's Trending Today... Pope Francis is making his first telephone call above the earth -- and into space. On Thursday, the pope called the International Space Station. Six astronauts are currently working there -- three Americans, two Russians and one Italian.   Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli was aboard the space station for the first-ever papal call, made in 2011 by Pope Benedict. He returned to space in July. As he did in 2011, he acted as a translator Thursday during his second papal call. Francis asked Nespoli and the five other astronauts many questions. Some were simple, such as ‘why did you choose to become an astronaut?’ Other questions were much deeper and more complex. Russian astronaut Sergey Ryazanskiy told Francis that his grandfather, a Soviet engineer who helped build Sputnik, had inspired him. Some of the responses he received from the Russian astronauts marked a small step in improving the Vatican’s relations with Orthodox Russia. Francis has worked hard to improve the relationship. Last year, he became the first pope in 1,000 years to meet with the Russian Orthodox patriarch. The other Russian aboard the International Space Station is Alexander Misurkin. He responded to Francis’s question about how the astronauts understood the Italian poet Dante’s line that love is the force that moves the universe. Misurkin told the pope that he had been reading Antoine de St. Exupery’s “The Little Prince” while in space. He explained that the young prince’s understanding of love affected him. “Love is the force that gives you strength to give your life for someone else,” he told the pope. Francis responded by saying “It’s clear you have understood the message that St. Exupery so poetically explained, and that you Russians have in your blood, in your humanistic and religious tradition.” Pope Francis considered a career as a chemist before becoming a priest. He has often expressed his concern for the environment and care for what he calls “our common home.” Space station commander Randy Bresnik, an American, told Francis that what he enjoyed most about being in space was seeing “God’s creation maybe a little bit from his perspective.” Bresnik, a U.S. Marine, flew combat missions during the Iraq war. He told Francis that in space there are “no borders, there is no conflict, it’s just peaceful.” Nespoli thanked the pope for his deep questions. He said that most of the crew’s days are spent performing highly technical and mechanical tasks. “You brought us higher up,” he said. “You took us away from the daily mechanics of things and made us think about things that are bigger than us.” Since his launch in July, Nespoli has published beautiful photos of Italy from space on his Twitter page; one of his recent pictures shows the Alps from 400 kilometers above the Earth. Francis is known for making out-of-the-blue -- or unexpected -- phone calls. But Thursday’s call had been planned for a long time. The European Space Agency made the arrangements, with NASA’s technical support. I'm Alice Bryant.  And that’s What’s Trending Today. The Associated Press reported this story. Ashley Thompson adapted it for Learning English. Hai Do was the editor. _______________________________________________________________ Words in This Story   translator- n. ​a person who changes words written in one language into a different language​ Orthodox Church- n. ​a branch of the Christian church that has members mainly in the area from eastern Europe to eastern Africa​ perspective- n. ​a way of thinking about and understanding something (such as a particular issue or life in general)​ crew- n. ​the group of people who operate a ship, airplane, or train​ arrangement - n. the way that things or people are organized for a particular purpose or activity

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Verbs and Infinitives in Everyday Speech

  The 1977 movie Star Wars is an American classic, with many memorable lines and characters. At one point in the film, the character C-3PO says the following words:  "We seem to be made to suffer. It's our lot in life." Today, we are going to explore that statement. We are not talking about the meaning behind the statement. Instead, we will study the sentence's grammar. In particular, we are going to explore verb + infinitive combinations. "Seem to be" -- the words you heard in the movie -- is one such example. Let's begin with some definitions. Infinitives and Gerunds An infinitive is the basic form of the verb. Sometimes it has the word "to" in front of it. In the sentence "I like to study grammar," the words "to study" are an infinitive. A gerund is the form of a verb that ends in –ing. It acts like a noun. For example, in the sentence "Learning English is fun," the word "learning" is a gerund. Why are we talking about infinitives and gerunds? Some verbs can be followed by an infinitive or a gerund. Knowing when to use an infinitive and when to use a gerund is difficult. However, the good news is this: verb + infinitive combinations are more common than verb + gerund combinations.* Moreover, in everyday speech, verbs from four basic groups are often followed by infinitives. These basic patterns can help you learn the hundreds of specific verb + infinitive combinations. We will now give you examples of three of these basic meaning groups. We will tell you the most common verbs from these groups that you will hear in everyday speech. We will also give you famous examples from American popular culture. #1 Expressing want or need Infinitives commonly follow verbs that express want or need. Common examples include the verbs want, like, hope, need and wish. What do these verb + infinitive combinations sound like in everyday situations? Let's listen to the following conversation: 1: Do you want to see a movie this afternoon? 2: I would like to see a movie, but I don't want to be indoors this afternoon – it's so beautiful outside. 1: How about this evening? 2: That sounds great. I can't stay up late, though, because I need to get up early tomorrow morning. In the conversation, you heard several examples of verb + an infinitive: "want to see," "like to be," and "need to get up." American popular culture also gives you more examples of how these structures sound. The 1997 romantic comedy film As Good As It Gets gives you one example: "You make me want to be a better man." Here, actor Jack Nicholson uses the infinitive "to be" after the verb "want." #2 Expressing Effort Infinitives often follow verbs that suggest effort. Common examples include the verbs attempt, fail, manage and try. You can hear examples of these structures in the following conversation about school. Imagine you hear two students speaking with each other. One student did well on a test, and the other student did not do very well: 1: I managed to get an A on the test! 2.  Well, I tried to pass the test... 1: Oh! I'm sorry, you didn't do well? 2: Don't worry about it – I'll do better next time. Hey, do you want to play videogames tomorrow? Here, the speakers used many past tense verbs, "managed" and "tried," for example. Even though the speakers used the past tense, they still used infinitives after the main verb. We hope you do not play videogames instead of studying! American popular culture has many examples of try + an infinitive. Consider these lines from the classic American horror film, The Silence of the Lambs. Here, the fictional Dr. Lecter talks about killing a person: "A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti." In the example, Dr. Lecter uses the infinitive "to test" after the verb "tried." #3 "Seem" verbs Infinitives also often follow verbs that are similar to the verb "seem." Common examples include the verbs seem, appear, and tend. Let's listen to how speakers use these verbs in an everyday situation. Imagine a happy spouse returns home from a day at the office: 1: You seem to be happy with yourself! 2: I tend to smile when I get good news... 1: Really? What's the news? 2: I got a promotion! You just heard two examples of a verb + infinitive combination: "seem to be" and "tend to smile." You might have also noticed that the words from the film Star Wars also fit into this group:  "We seem to be made to suffer. It's our lot in life."  What can you do? The next time you are watching TV or speaking with an American, try to listen for examples of verb + infinitive. Ask yourself the basic meaning of the verb. Does it fit into one of the groups we talked about today? Gerunds and infinitives are difficult to learn. But with study and practice, you will master them. How can you do this? Try to use them as often as you can. I'm Jill Robbins. And I'm John Russell.   John Russell wrote this story for Learning English. Caty Weaver was the editor. We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section. *Susan Conrad and Douglas Biber "Real Grammar: A Corpus-Based Approach to English" Pearson Education. 2009. P.97 ______________________________________________________________ Words in This Story   lot in life – expression a person's situation in life especially as decided by chance combination – n. a result or product of combining two or more things or people conversation – n. an informal talk involving two people or a small group of people: the act of talking in an informal way manage – v. to succeed in doing (something) Chianti – n.  a dry red wine from Italy promotion – n.  the act of moving someone to a higher or more important position or rank in an organization

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