Good morning. The program today is about music. The word “music” comes from the Greek word “muse”. The Muses are the goddesses of the arts. Music is only one of the arts. It is like the spoken language, but is uses sounds. Today's program brings together music from different corners of the world. Who invented music? Who sang the first song? No one knows exactly the answers to these questions. But we know that music plays an important part in almost everyone's life. Babies and young children love to hear people singing to them. When they are a little older, they like to sing the songs they have heard. When children go to school, their world of music grows. In the middle grades students take music lessons. When they reach high school, they become interested in listening to pop music.

    The records we have chosen for you today are form American country music, Indian music, pop music and so on. Music has meaning for everyone. It can make people happy or it can make them sad. In this program we shall study the language of music. We shall be trying to find out more about how music works. We shall try to find out how music says what people feel.

    Now, here comes the music today, I shall explain why they are all good music…

C

    Modern fathers spend an average of six and a half hours a week playing with their children. A study said this equals 338 hours a year, or just over 14 days, three whole days more fun time than their own fathers spent with them.

    The report said modern parents are ''adventurous”, as many encourage their children to play outside. A third of parents also prefer family trips which encourage children to learn new skills, and most say that having fun together improves family ties. The study said the lack of time that today's parents shared with their own dads encouraged them to be more active with their children.

    Dr. Amanda Gummer, psychologist and founder of Fundamentally Children, a company which provides advice on child development, said being adventurous helps children. She said, “Being adventurous from an early age helps children develop important skills that will last throughout childhood and set them up for a healthy and successful adulthood.”

    Outdoor activities are a popular choice for dads and their children, with 40 percent choosing nature trails and 26 percent looking for wildlife, while 13 percent say their top outdoor activity is climbing trees. The simple things are the most popular, with 46 percent going to the park and 41 percent choosing to kick a ball around their children.

    Dr Gummer said, “Children are able to challenge themselves by being more adventurous, and they can be safe in the knowledge that their dad will be there to help if things start getting out of control. Parents can help encourage their children's adventurous, outdoor spirit with wildlife treasure hunts and adventure playgrounds. They can even do more exciting things, like going on camping trips.

    The number of snow geese arriving in the Arctic each spring to breed has risen over the past few decades. At first, wildlife biologists saw this as an environmental crisis, pointing to marshes（湿地） where plants were eaten by the hungry birds. In response, the federal government loosened restrictions on snow goose hunting.

    But how do the Inuit, in whose backyard this is taking place, view the situation? A recent plan is giving Inuit wildlife experts the opportunity to lend their knowledge to managing the species. The snow goose study, which is supported in part by Polar Knowledge Canada and led by the Kivalliq Wildlife Board (an Inuit organization that manages hunting, trapping and fishing in central Nunavut), asked the experts to share their generations of knowledge about snow geese and their views on what should be done.

    “The community had concerns about controlling the population,” says Ron, a community officer of the Kivalliq Inuit Association, “and Inuit snow goose knowledge had never been recorded. People wanted to pass on what they knew.” Inuit experts disagreed with that, considering it wasteful and unnecessary. They felt hunting more snow geese in an organized way, such as paying local hunters a minimal amount of money and distributing the birds to disadvantaged families or operating a limited commercial hunt by employing local people, would be appropriate.

    Inuit wildlife experts will plan to call on scientists this fall. They say they hope to search for a common way forward and that while there may be too many snow geese in some areas, it's not a crisis. Biologists now generally agree that there seem to be plenty of undamaged marshes available and newer research shows that some damaged areas can recover.

    “Now that we have recorded and documented Inuit knowledge of snow geese,” says Ron, “when facing the crisis other people will be able to use the information to help manage the species, which is fundamental to dealing with it effectively.”

    You've got your fancy new suitcase and you're ready to take it with you on your travels across the globe.

    You get to the airport, quickly moving through the crowds on the uneven pavement, rushing to check in. Then, your heart sinks when you realize your new suitcase has got a serious case of the wobbles (摇晃).

    Why does this happen?

    Scientists from the Universite Paris-Diderot in France investigated this matter and published their findings in the science journal Proceedings of the Royal Society A. They also suggested some solutions to overcome this modern-day problem.

    To learn more about the issue, they put a suitcase on a treadmill (跑步机) and observed what happened.

    It was soon noted that the "wobble" was actually a result of repeated actions that caused the suitcase to sway from side to side. They discovered that if one of the wheels encountered an obstacle such as a small bump, it jumped into the air for just a moment and then banged back down to the ground. That second action caused the opposite wheel to lift off the ground and then to bang back down, causing the first to lift again and so on. This swaying increased as the luggage was pulled along.

    "The suitcase is a fun way to tackle the problem, but the study would be the same for any trolley with two wheels or blades (桨叶)," Sylvain Courrech du Pont, lead author of the study, told BBC News. "So it will be the same for a caravan (大篷车) or maybe also for airplanes."

    Instead of slowing down when we see a rocky part of the path, the scientists recommended doing the exact opposite and speeding up. This is because going faster gives the wheels less time to rise and fall, preventing the case from swaying. They also said that reducing the angle of the suitcase by lowering its handle to the ground would help keep it steady.

    "These findings could help researchers simulate and design better rolling suitcases and other pulled trolleys, such as towed trailers," Courrech du Pont added.

With these masterminds (智者) working on perfecting our suitcase problems, wobbly luggage may soon be a thing of history, leaving us to enjoy our travels.

    For nearly thirty years I did parent programs in all of the fifty states, and regardless of the community, there was always a shortage of fathers attending, usually by a 10:1 (mothers、 fathers) ratio. Maybe they were all tending to business, and they obviously didn't think school was any of their business.

    The world is now flat. How's that for a sea change? As Thomas Friedman described it in his book The World Is Flat twenty-five years ago, the power structure of the world consisted of highs and lows. The countries with the power and knowledge were at the top of the mountains and the rest were down in the valleys. A handful of countries (the United States, Britain, Germany, and Japan) ruled the world's economy because they monopolize (垄断)the information and power.

    Then came the Internet. Suddenly the countries down in the valleys were connected to the information network and the work flow. These included India, Eastern Europe, South Korea, Brazil, and China. Don't believe it? Walk into a supermarket and pick up any ten toys, checking each for where it was made. My last count: China, ten out of ten. The world's workforce became "flattened". No more disconnected valleys.

    Since 2000, U.S. manufacturing has lost six million jobs, one-third of its workforce, most of them males. For the first time in history, women hold the majority of jobs in the U.S.

    The only people who don't understand the sea change in business are the fathers and sons still clinging to the image of the male who doesn't need to play school—just play ball. It's been thirty years since that idea had any wings, but too many males are still trying to make it fly. Once the only thing that mattered for men was what they could get out of the ground with their hands. Now it's what they can get out of their heads that counts. And without classroom success, today's male faces an impossible challenge from both intelligent women on the home front and foreigners willing to do the same job for less while sitting in an office in Bangalore or Singapore.

    Education has always been a hot topic. How to educate children can be a sweet but painstaking task for parents, many of whom try to offer their children the best environment. Competition between parents over children's education may start from the kind of animated (动画) series children watch. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} By watching the former, children can learn English at the same time. However, this does not mean those watching foreign shows perform better than those watching Chinese ones. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} They can help children learn traditional Chinese culture and history. Take Journey to the West for example. {#blank#}3{#/blank#}

    By watching this show, children can learn more about the history of the Tang Dynasty and the development of Buddhist culture in China. Foreign shows can open a window for children to gain a better understanding of the outside world. So, children ought to be encouraged to watch both as long as the content of the show is beneficial.

    This can also be applied to other things beyond animated series. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} However, some parents fail to do this. Their incorrect view can more or less leave an influence on their children. Innocent (天真的) children, influenced by their parents, slowly hold the view that watching foreign shows is better than watching Chinese shows. {#blank#}5{#/blank#}

A. Chinese shows have their own advantages.

B. Foreign animated series are always the first choice for parents.

C. Children often follow their parents' advice when choosing animated series.

D. For example, children can be encouraged to read folk tales at home and abroad.

E. Once the view is formed in children's minds, parents' education proves a failure.

F. This show is based on one of the four great classical novels of Chinese literature.

G. For some parents, watching foreign animated shows is better than watching Chinese ones.