American Gun Culture

In our last lesson we talked about America and their right to bear arms. Farrah told us a lot of interesting things about it.

There are different reasons why Americans wear weapons. One is the struggle against the Britishand to make sure that the government doesn’t go bad.

Another reason was the frontier life. People who live at the frontier had to protect them of their own because there wasn't police around. So there aren't so much people in the cities how wear guns.

We also talked about the shooting in Arizona and Farrah showed us a short video on “Youtube”.

In Arizona, a young man wanted to kill a democratic congress woman. After he shot her into her head, he started shooting into the crowd. Fortunately, the woman lives and doctors say that she is in good condition for someone in this situation.

In my opinion people should only be allowed to wear weapons, if they need them to do their job.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was at first celebrated in 1621 from the Pilgrims, who wanted to celebrate their first harvest. The Pilgrims invited the Native Americans to eat with them, because they have shown them how to plant and fish.

It is celebrated on the 4^th Thursday in November. This day the families come together to have a Thanksgiving dinner. Typical dishes are: turkey with stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes with marshmallows, pecan pie, pumkin pie and so on...

The most important thing on this day is that most of the people thank for everything in their life. They thank to be healthy, to have enough food, to have a good job and to have a family.

The day after Thanksgiving, which is always a Friday, is called "Black Friday". This day is the beginning of the Christmas shopping season and nearly every shop grants a lot of discounts and they open very early in the morning to get all people in.

In my opinion Thanksgiving is a nice feast, but I would hate the "Black Friday", because of all the people who queue up to buy something.

For economy the "Black Friday" is a good idea, because there are enough silly people, who take the stress on them and want to buy something on this day, but for people who have to work it's a pity.

Halloween

Halloween is a shortened form of All Hallow's Eve.

Halloween means holy - Eve is the day before a holy day.

Halloween was an ancient British Celtic

festival.At Halloween the souls of the dead returned. People lit bonfires to frighten evil spirits.

Now bonfires are only burnt on November 5th - Bonfire Night.

• masks
• costumes
• ghosts
• witches on broomsticks with black cats
• skeletons
• bats and spiders
• and Halloween lanterns

...have all become part of Halloween

Children play trick-or-treat. They ask for a treat hoping to geht sweets.

I found a funny halloween video on "youtube.com", which you can see if you click on this link.

My favourite advertisement

It's the Nike football advertising with Robinho.

link

Press review - Running on empty

I read an article the other day in the online version of “economist.com” and it talks about strikes in France, because of a pension reform. I thought you might be interested, because our class is going to France at the end of this school year.

Basically what it says is that the French president Mr. Sarkozy wants to raise the legal minimum retirement age from 60 to 62 years. The outcome was that the French were striking to prevent this law.

There are infrequent trains, absent teachers, undelivered post and unprinted newspapers, like it is on every other strike. Unfortunately this strike is already takin longer than usual strikes and the workers of all refineries, lorry drivers and school pupils joined in too. Now the government is having a big problem, because the country is running out of petrol, because of the striking oil workers.

In my opinion the strikes in France are silly and unnecessary, because the country has high debts as a result of their pension system. So they have to save money to pay the pension in the future and I don’t understand this long strikes. In Austria we can draw a pension at the age of 65, so the French should be happy with the minimum retirement age of 62.

Vocabulary:

minimum retirement age (Pensionsantrittsalter) – The minimum retirement age is 60 years.

to prevent (verhindern) – The people try to prevent a law.

draw a pension (Pension beanspruchen) – In Austria we can draw a pension at the age of 65.

Farrah

Farrah is a student from the USA and she comes from Maryland, which is close to Washinton D.C.

Now she lives in Linz, because she is in Austria to learn German.

The things she loves most of Austria are the mountains and the pretty, old cities.

Farrah has already visited Vienna, Linz, Perg, Saubach and Innsbruck.

Her hobbies are reading, meeting friends, travelling and watching movies.

She stays in Austria until may, but if she wants she can stay another year.

Farrah has already been in a lot of european countries. There are Germany, France, UK, Belgium, Greece and Switzerland.

The said that the biggest different between Austria and the United States is that in Austria everything is much smaller.

At her home in Maryland she has got some pats like a dog, a cat, a turtle and a parrot.

The development of advertising

I have just read an article, which tasks about the history of advertising.

Advertising began in the Industrial Revolution, which was in the 19th century and it was mainly used to promote novelties and fringe products. Later national advertising campaigns and brand-naming became necessary.

The economic depression between 1873 and 1894 brought on a crisis of over-production and under-consumption, so a lot of goods were unsold and the prices and profits fell. Small industrial firms combined with other small businesses and widened the range of goods, so they were in a better postition.

From about the 1850s there were a lot of anonymous bars of soap on the market, so the leading companies decided to use more aggressive selling methods. For example Lord Leverhulme, who had the idea to 'brand' his soap by selling it in distinctive packages.

Many companies followed Lord Leverhulme and started advertising their products. Shortly after bigger and more campaigns were mounted and smaller firm, who didn't or couldn't, were squeezed or bought out by the larger companies.