TPO 4 Conversation 2
Narrator
Listen to a conversation between a student and a professor.
Professor
Hey, Jane, you look like you are in a hurry.
Student
Yeah, things are a little crazy.
Professor
Oh yeah? What's going on?
Student
Oh, it's nothing. Well, since it's your class, I guess it's OK. It's, it's just I am having trouble with my group project.
Professor
Ah, yes, due next week. What's your group doing again?
Student
It's about United States Supreme Court Decisions. We are looking at the impact of recent cases on property rights, municipal land use cases, owning disputes.
Professor
Right, OK. And it's not going well?
Student
Not really. I'm worried about other two people in my group. They are just sitting back, not really doing their fair share of the work and waiting for an A. It's kind of stressing me out, because we are getting close to the deadline and I feel like I'm doing everything for this project.
Professor
Ah, the good old free rider problem.
Student
Free rider?
Professor
Ah, it's just a term that describes this situation, when people in the group seek to get the benefits of being in a group without contributing to the work. Anyway, what exactly do you mean when you say they just sit back? I mean, they've been following the weekly progress reports with me.
Student
Yes, but I feel like I'm doing 90% of the work. I hate to sound so negative here, but honestly, they are taking credit for things they shouldn't take credit for. Like last week in the library, we decided to split up the research into 3 parts and each of us was supposed to find sources in the library for our parts. I went off to the stack and found some really good material for my part, but when I got back to our table, they were just goofing off and talking. So I went and got materials for their sections as well.
Professor
Um…you know you shouldn't do that.
Student
I know, but I didn't want to risk the project going down the drain.
Professor
I know Teresa and Kevin. I had both of them on other courses. So, I'm familiar with the work and work habits.
Student
I know, me too. That's why this has really surprised me.
Professor
Do you…does your group like your topic?
Student
Well, I think we'd all rather focus on cases that deal with personal liberties, questions about freedom of speech, things like that. But I chose property rights.
Professor
You chose the topic?
Student
Yeah, I thought it would be good for us, all of us to try something new.
Professor
Um…maybe that's part of the problem. Maybe Teresa and Kevin aren't that excited about the topic? And since you picked it, have you thought…talk to them at all about picking a different topic?
Student
But we've got all the sources and it's due next week. We don't have time to start from scratch.
Professor
OK, I will let you go ‘cause I know you are so busy. But you might consider talking to your group about your topic choice.
Student
I will think about it. Got to run, see you in class.TPO 4 Lecture 3 Geology
Narrator
Listen to part of a lecture in a geology class.
Professor
Now we've got a few minutes before we leave for today. So I'll just touch on an interesting subject that I think makes an important point. We've been covering rocks and different types of rocks for the last several weeks. But next week we are going to do something a bit different. And to get started I thought I'd mention something that shows how uh…as a geologist, you need to know about more than just rocks and the structure of solid matter, moving rocks, you may have heard about them. It's quite a mystery. Death valley is this desert plane, a dry lake bed in California surrounded by mountains and on the desert floor these huge rocks, some of them hundreds of pounds. And they move. They leave long trails behind them, tracks you might say as they move from one point to another. But nobody has been able to figure out how they are moving because no one has ever seen it happen. Now there are a lot of theories, but all we know for sure is that people aren't' moving the rocks. There are no footprints, no tyre tracks and no heavy machinery like a bulldozer…uh, nothing was ever brought in to move these heavy rocks. So what's going on? Theory ---Wind? Some researchers think powerful uh…windstorms might move the rocks. Most of the rocks move in the same direction as the dominant wind pattern from southwest to northeast. But some, and this is interesting, move straight west while some zigzag or even move in large circles. Um…How can that be? How about wind combined with rain? The ground of this desert is made of clay. It's a desert, so it's dry. But when there is the occasional rain, the clay ground becomes extremely slippery. It's hard for anyone to stand on, walk on. Some scientists theorized that perhaps when the ground is slippery the high winds can then move the rocks. There's a problem with this theory. One team of scientists flooded an area of the desert with water, then try to establish how much wind force would be necessary to move the rocks. And guess this, you need winds of at least five hundred miles an hour to move just the smallest rocks. And winds that strong have never been recorded. Ever! Not on this planet. So I think it's safe to say that that issues has been settled. Here is another possibility – ice. It's possible that rain on the desert floor could turn to thin sheets of ice when temperatures drop at night. So if rocks…uh becoming better than ice, uh … OK, could a piece of ice with rocks in it be pushed around by the wind? But there's a problem with this theory, too. Rocks trapped in ice together would have moved together when the ice moved. But that doesn't always happen. The rocks seem to take separate routes. There are a few other theories. Maybe the ground vibrates, or maybe the ground itself is shifting, tilting. Maybe the rocks are moved by a magnetic force. But sadly all these ideas have been eliminated as possibilities. There's just no evidence. I bet you are saying to yourself well, why don't scientists just set up video cameras to record what actually happens? Thing is this is a protective wilderness area. So by law that type of research isn't allowed. Besides, in powerful windstorms, sensitive camera equipment would be destroyed. So why can't researchers just live there for a while until they observe the rocks' moving? Same reason. So where are we now? Well, right now we still don't have any answers. So all this leads back to my main point – you need to know about more than just rocks as geologists. The researchers studying moving rocks, well, they combine their knowledge of rocks with knowledge of wind, ice and such…um not successfully, not yet. But you know, they wouldn't even have been able to get started without uh… earth science understanding – knowledge about wind, storms, you know, meteorology. You need to understand physics. So for several weeks like I said we'll be addressing geology from a wider perspective. I guess that's all for today. See you next time.TPO 4 Lecture 4 United States government
Narrator
Listen to part of a lecture in a United States government class.
Professor
OK, last time we were talking about government support for the arts. Who can sum up some of the main points? Frank?
Frank
Well, I guess there wasn't really any, you know, official government support for the arts until the twentieth century. But the first attempt the United States government made to, you know, to support the arts was the Federal Art Project.
Professor
Right, so what can you say about the project?
Frank
Um…it was started during the Depression, um…in the 1930s to employ out of-work artists.
Professor
So was it successful? Janet? What do you say?
Janet
Yeah, sure, it was successful. I mean, for one thing, the project established a lot of…uh like community art centers and galleries and places like rural areas where people hadn't really had access to the arts.
Professor
Right.
Frank
Yeah. But didn't the government end up wasting a lot of money for art that wasn't even very good?
Professor
Uh…some people might say that. But wasn't the primary objective of the Federal Art Project to provide jobs?
Frank
That's true. I mean…it did provide jobs for thousands of unemployed artists.
Professor
Right. But then when the United States became involved in the Second World War, unemployment was down and it seems that these programs weren't really necessary any longer. So, moving on, we don't actually see any govern…well any real government involvement in the arts again until the early 1960s, when President Kennedy and other politicians started to push for major funding to support and promote the arts. It was felt by a number of politicians that …well that the government had a responsibility to support the arts as sort of… oh, what can we say?...the the soul…or spirit of the country.
The idea was that there be a federal subsidy…um…uh…financial assistance to artists and artistic or cultural institutions.
And for just those reasons, in 1965, the National Endowment for the Arts was created. So it was through the NEA, the National Endowment for the Arts, um…that the arts would develop, would be promoted throughout the nation. And then individual states throughout the country started to establish their own state arts councils to help support the arts. There was kind of uh…cultural explosion. And by the mid 1970s, by 1974 I think, all fifty states had their own arts agencies, their own state arts councils that work with the federal government with corporations, artists, performers, you name it.
Frank
Did you just say corporations? How are they involved?
Professor
Well, you see, corporations aren't always altruistic. They might not support the arts unless…well, unless the government made it attractive for them to do so, by offering corporations tax incentives to support the arts, that is, by letting corporations pay less in taxes if they were patrons of the arts. Um, the Kennedy Centre in Washington D.C. , you may uh…maybe you've been there, or Lincoln Centre in New York. Both of these were built with substantial financial support from corporations. And the Kennedy and Lincoln center's aren't the only examples. Many of your cultural establishments in the United States will have a plaque somewhere acknowledging the support – the money they received from whatever corporation. Oh, yes, Janet?
Janet
But aren't there a lot of people who don't think it's the government's role to support the arts?
Professor
Well, as a matter of fact, a lot of politicians who did not believe in government support for the arts, they wanted to do away with the agency entirely, for that very reason, to get rid of governmental support. But they only succeeded in taking away about half the annual budget. And as far as the public goes, well…there are about as many individuals who disagree with the government support as there are those who agree. In fact, with artists in particular, you have lots of artists who support and who have benefited from this agency, although it seems that just as many artists suppose a government agency being involved in the arts, for many different reasons, reasons like they don't want the government to control what they create. In other words, the arguments both for and against government funding of the arts are as many and, and as varied as the individual styles of the artists who hold them.