Mittwoch, 16. Februar 2011

Egypt's euphoria

I read an article the other day in the online-version of economist.com and it talks about the resignation of Hosni Mubarak. I thought you might be interested, because the protests in Egypt are in the newspaper all over the world for the last few weeks.

Basically what it says is that Egypt’s president Hosni Mubarak notified, that he is going to resign from his function. A correspondent from Alexandria described Egypt’s collective elation as the release of 30 years of bottled-up emotion. He said that he had seen birth and he had seen marriage, but he had never seen happiness like this. Another reporter described the rise of Egypt’s people and the fall of Egypt’s dictator as “everything I’ve ever hoped for”.

What surprised me most was the fact that Mr Mubarak was Egypt’s president for more than 30 years!

As for me I think it is good that Mubarak resigns from his function, because he is quite old and he was president for a very long time.

Vocabulary:

resignation – Rücktritt

The people in Egypt are happy with Mr Mubaraks resignation.

bottled-up – aufgestaut

A cause of this is the 30 years bottled-up emotion.

elation – Hochstimmung

Egypt’s collective elation is breathtaking.

Freitag, 21. Januar 2011

American Gun Culture

In our last English lesson Farrah told us something about the American gun culture. Basically what she talked about was that in America everyone is allowed to bear arms. This means that everyone is allowed to carry weapons with him or her.

Why do Americans want to protect their right to bear arms?

The Americans are used to their guns and they might feel strong against the government and burglars. They also need guns for hunting. In former times the cowboys had to fight against animals and other people who wanted America to be their country.

Farrah also told us something about the Redneck stereotype. Rednecks drive very old cars, they drink beer all day long, they are uneducated, they all wear guns and they don’t care about what other people say about them. Rednecks wear very old clothes.

At the end of the lesson Farrah showed as a video on youtube about the congresswoman Garbielle Giffords who was shot in the head by a young man last week. This happened in shopping-center in Tucson (Arizona).