Be a bookworm, enjoy reading!

Dear students, 

choose a book you'd like to read from (Oxford, bookworm series)
and tell me the title!!! 

(by commenting here or using fb)

Once you get it, you have till 6th Nov. to read it. 

Then you'll do an easy easy comprehension test to check you have understood the plot, recognized the characters and learnt some new vocabulary.

choose your level here

it should be 2-3-4 for 3rd ESO
4-5-6 for 1st BAT
Don't forget to choose it before the 4th Oct. otherwise I'll decide what you are going to read. Up 2 U!

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer.

When April with his showers sweet with fruit The drought of March has pierced unto the root And bathed each vein with liquor that has power To generate therein and sire the flower; When Zephyr also has, with his sweet breath, Quickened again, in every holt and heath, The tender shoots and buds, and the young sun Into the Ram one half his course has run, And many little birds make melody That sleep through all the night with open eye (So Nature pricks them on to ramp and rage)- Then do folk long to go on pilgrimage, And palmers to go seeking out strange strands, To distant shrines well known in sundry lands. And specially from every shire's end Of England they to Canterbury wend, The holy blessed martyr there to seek Who helped them when they lay so ill and weak.

Whan that aprill with his shoures soote 
The droghte of march hath perced to the roote, 
And bathed every veyne in swich licour 
Of which vertu engendred is the flour; 
Whan zephirus eek with his sweete breeth 
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth 
Tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne 
Hath in the ram his halve cours yronne, 
And smale foweles maken melodye, 
That slepen al the nyght with open ye 
(so priketh hem nature in hir corages); 
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages, 
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes, 
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes; 
And specially from every shires ende 
Of engelond to caunterbury they wende, 
The hooly blisful martir for to seke, 
That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke. 

Middle English describes dialects of English in the history of the English language between the High and Late Middle Ages, or roughly during the three centuries between the late 12th and the late 15th century.

The Canterbury Tales is the culminating life’s work of Geoffrey Chaucer, a fourteenth-century Englishman considered to be one of the greatest poets to write in the English language. In addition to its literary value, The Canterbury Tales is significant because it is the first major work of literature to have been written in English, a language that during Chaucer’s time was considered unworthy of poetry or prose. Full of romance, drama, pathos, and humor, Chaucer’s diverse collection of tales paints a vivid literary portrait of his medieval society. His writing influenced many English authors of great renown who succeeded him, including William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens.

the Merchant, the Friar, the Monk, the Franklin, the Wife of Bath, the Parson, and the Ploughman.

Chaucer was born between 1340 and 1345 to John Chaucer, a successful merchant who supplied wine to the royal court. Through this family connection, Chaucer worked as a page in an aristocratic household and went on to pursue a busy life in English society. He served a brief stint in the army, attended the royal court as a poet, and held various royal clerkships and public appointments, including the lucrative position of Controller of Customs for the Port of London. He also served as a Member of Parliament. At a time when it was nearly impossible to rise above one’s social class, Chaucer enjoyed the patronage of King Edward III’s son, John of Gaunt, one of the most powerful noblemen of the time. Chaucer’s intellect, wit, and knowledge of human nature, qualities that characterize The Canterbury Tales, likely contributed to his professional and social success as a commoner among members of the aristocracy.

Chaucer’s diplomatic and military travels afforded him an invaluable opportunity to meet people from all walks of life and to read the literature of the European continent, experiences which influenced The Canterbury Tales. 

He traveled in England and Ireland, as well as in Spain, Flanders, France, and Italy. Already versed in the French poetry popular in the royal court and knowledgeable of classical literature from his studies as a youth, Chaucer became familiar with the Italian language. His knowledge of both French and Italian is reflected in his poetry.  

Chaucer, however, wrote The Canterbury Tales in Middle English, a fact that is significant because English during Chaucer’s time was not the language of poetry or prose. Because of the Norman invasion in 1066, which made William the Conqueror the King of England, the Anglo-Norman aristocracy of the English court spoke French, and the language of the cultured was French or Latin. In seeing the poetic possibilities of writing in English and in creating a masterpiece in The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer gave literary authority to the English language. 

During his time in Italy, Chaucer may have read Italian poet Boccaccio’s recently writtenThe Decameron, a collection of tales told by upper-class characters traveling in the Italian countryside to avoid the Florentine plague. The Decameron is thought to be an inspiration for The Canterbury Tales’ ambitious collection of storytellers and their tales. Chaucer’s individual tales drew on many other literary works. It is uncertain when Chaucer began work on The Canterbury Tales. He had certainly written versions of some of the tales for other purposes before he generated the idea of framing the tales with the story of a pilgrimage in the late 1380s. During the last decade of his life, Chaucer edited and added to the project. It remained unfinished at the time of his death in 1400.

John Irving: In One Person

I’m going to begin by telling you about Miss Frost. While I say to everyone that I became a writer because I read a certain novel by Charles Dickens at the formative age of fifteen, the truth is I was younger than that when I first met Miss Frost and imagined having sex with her, and this moment of my sexual awakening also marked the fitful birth of my imagination. We are formed by what we desire. In less than a minute of excited, secretive longing, I desired to become a writer and to have sex with Miss Frost—not necessarily in that order.
I met Miss Frost in a library. 
I like libraries, though I have difficulty pronouncing the word—both the plural and the singular. It seems there are certain words I have considerable trouble pronouncing: nouns, for the most part—people, places, and things that have caused me preternatural excitement, irresolvable conflict, or utter panic. Well, that is the opinion of various voice teachers and speech therapists and psychiatrists who’ve treated me—alas, without success. In elementary school, I was held back a grade due to “severe speech impairments”—an overstatement. I’m now in my late sixties, almost seventy; I’ve ceased to be interested in the cause of my mispronunciations. (Not to put too fine a point on it, but fuck the etiology.)
I don’t even try to say the etiology word, but I can manage to struggle through
a comprehensible mispronunciation of library or libraries—the botched word emerging as an unknown fruit. (“Liberry,” or “liberries,” I say—the way children do.) It’s all the more ironic that my first library was undistinguished. This was the public library in the small town of First Sister, Vermont—a compact red-brick building on the same street where my grandparents lived. I lived in their house on River Street—until I was fifteen, when my mom remarried. My mother met my stepfather in a play. 
The town’s amateur theatrical society was called the First Sister Players; for as far back as I can remember, I saw all the plays in our town’s little theater. My mom was the prompter—if you forgot your lines, she told you what to say. (It being
an amateur theater, there were a lot of forgotten lines.) For years, I thought the prompter was one of the actors—someone mysteriously offstage, and not in cos- tume, but a necessary contributor to the dialogue.
My stepfather was a new actor in the First Sister Players when my mother met him. He had come to town to teach at Favorite River Academy—the almost-prestigious private school, which was then all boys. For much of my young life (most certainly, by the time I was ten or eleven), I must have known that eventually, when I was “old enough,” I would go to the academy. There was a more modern and better-lit library at the prep school, but the public library in the town of First Sister was my first library, and the librarian there was my first librarian. (Incidentally, I’ve never had any trouble saying the librarian word.)

Needless to say, Miss Frost was a more memorable experience than the library. Inexcusably, it was long after meeting her that I learned her first name. Everyone called her Miss Frost, and she seemed to me to be my mom’s age—or a little younger—when I belatedly got my first library card and met her. My aunt, a most imperious person, had told me that Miss Frost “used to be very good-looking,” but it was impossible for me to imagine that Miss Frost could ever have been better-looking than she was when I met her—notwithstanding that, even as a kid, all I did was imagine things. My aunt claimed that the available men in the town used to fall all over themselves when they met Miss Frost. When one of them got up the nerve to introduce himself—to actually tell Miss Frost his name—the then-beautiful librarian would look at him coldly and icily say, “My name is Miss Frost. Never been married, never want to be.”
With that attitude, Miss Frost was still unmarried when I met her; inconceivably, to me, the available men in the town of First Sister had long stopped introducing themselves to her.
excerpt-from-in-one-person  (there you can read a bit more of this wonderful novel)

John Irving reading "In one person":

A personal introduction of In One Person from John Irving.

In One Person is about a young bisexual man who falls in love with an older transgender woman—Miss Frost, the librarian in a Vermont public library.  The bi guy is the main character, but two transgender women are the heroes of this novel—in the sense that these two characters are the ones my bisexual narrator, Billy Abbott, most looks up to.
Billy is not me.  He comes from my imagining what I might have been like if I’d acted on all my earliest impulses as a young teenager.  Most of us don’t ever act on our earliest sexual imaginings.  In fact, most of us would rather forget them—not me.  I think our sympathy for others comes, in part, from our ability to remember our feelings—to be honest about what we felt like doing.  Certainly, sexual tolerance comes from being honest with ourselves about what we have imagined sexually.
Those adults who are always telling children and young adults to abstain from doing everything—well, they must have never had a childhood or an adolescence (or they’ve conveniently forgotten what they were like when they were young).
When I was a boy, I imagined having sex with my friends’ mothers, with girls my own age—yes, even with certain older boys among my wrestling teammates.  It turned out that I liked girls, but the memory of my attractions to the “wrong” people never left me.  What I’m saying is that the impulse to bisexuality was very strong; my earliest sexual experiences—more important, my earliest sexual imaginings—taught me that sexual desire is mutable.  In fact, in my case—at a most formative age—sexual mutability was the norm.  What made me a writer was definitely a combination of what I read and what I imagined—especially, what I imagined sexually.
Billy meets the transgender librarian, Miss Frost, because he goes to the library seeking novels about “crushes on the wrong people.”  Miss Frost starts him out with the Brontë sisters—specifically, Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre.  She expresses less confidence in Fielding’s Tom Jones, which she also gives Billy.  As she puts it, “If one can count sexual escapades as one result of crushes—”
Later, when Billy has become an avid reader and he returns to the library confessing his crush on an older boy on the wrestling team, Miss Frost—who has earlier given Billy novels by Dickens and Hardy—gives him Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room.  (This is the same night she seduces him.)
“We are formed by what we desire,” Billy tells us—in the first paragraph of the first chapter.  He adds: “I desired to become a writer and to have sex with Miss Frost—not necessarily in that order.”
Later in the novel, Billy realizes this about himself: “I knew that no one person could rescue me from wanting to have sex with men and women.”

Enola Gay (O.m.d.1980), a pacifist song. August 1945, atomic bombing of Japan.

Enola gay, you should have stayed at home yesterday Aha words can't describe the feeling and the way you lied These games you play, they're gonna end it more than tears someday Aha Enola Gay, it shouldn't ever have to end this way It's 8:15, and that's the time that it's always been We got your message on the radio, conditions normal and you're coming home Enola Gay, is mother proud of little boy today Aha this kiss you give, it's never ever gonna fade away Enola Gay, it shouldn't ever have to end this way Aha Enola Gay, it shouldn't fade in our dreams away It's 8:15, and that's the time that it's always been We got your message on the radio, conditions normal and you're coming home Enola Gay, is mother proud of little boy today Aha this kiss you give, it's never ever gonna fade away 

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (1980)

The atomic bombings of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan were conducted by the United States during the final stages of World War II in 1945. The two events are the only use of nuclear weapons in war to date.

Following a firebombing campaign that destroyed many Japanese cities, the Allies prepared for a costly invasion of Japan. The war in Europe ended when Nazi Germany signed its instrument of surrender on 8 May, but the Pacific War continued. Together with the United Kingdom and the Republic of China, the United States called for a surrender of Japan in the Potsdam Declaration on 26 July 1945, threatening Japan with "prompt and utter destruction". The Japanese governmentignored this ultimatum. American airmen dropped Little Boy on the city of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, followed by Fat Manover Nagasaki on 9 August.

Within the first two to four months of the bombings, the acute effects killed 90,000–166,000 people in Hiroshima and 60,000–80,000 in Nagasaki, with roughly half of the deaths in each city occurring on the first day.

 The Hiroshima prefecture health department estimated that, of the people who died on the day of the explosion, 60% died from flash or flame burns, 30% from falling debris and 10% from other causes. During the following months, large numbers died from the effect of burns, radiation sickness, and other injuries, compounded by illness. In a US estimate of the total immediate and short term cause of death, 15–20% died from radiation sickness, 20–30% from burns, and 50–60% from other injuries, compounded by illness. In both cities, most of the dead were civilians, although Hiroshima had a sizeable garrison.

The weeping Woman (LLORONA), Homage to Chavela Vargas (1919-2012)

The Weeping Woman

Frida-Chavela

(an English version)

 

They call me black-hearted, Llorona,

black-hearted, and one who beguiles.

*And like jalapeños burn you, Llorona, 

you'll pay if you yield to my wiles.

(*literally: "I am like the green chile, Llorona,

                 Burning hot yet delectable.")

 

They think I don't feel the pain, Llorona, 

because they can't see me cry.

Yet even the dead are tearless, Llorona,

and their sorrow is greater than mine.

 

O pity me, Llorona, Llorona,

and down to the river let's go.

Hold me closely inside your shawl, Llorona,

for I think I shall die in the cold.

 

If the heavens above were mine, Llorona,

for you I’d pull all the stars down.

I’d place the moon there at your feet, Llorona, 

and take the sun’s rays for your crown.

To a Savior who bore the world's pain, Llorona,

I confided my horrible grief.

But my sorrowful suffering was such, Llorona,

that it made even Jesus weep.

.

The Weeping Woman

(La Llorona)

a hispanic legend by Joe Hayes

This is a story that the old ones have been telling to children for hundreds of years. It is a sad tale, but it lives strong in the memories of the people, and there are many who swear that it is true.

Long years ago in a humble little village there lived a fine looking girl named Maria Some say she was the most beautiful girl in the world! And because she was so beautiful, Maria thought she was better than everyone else.

As Maria grew older, her beauty increased And her pride in her beauty grew too When she was a young woman, she would not even look at the young men from her village. They weren't good enough for her! "When I marry," Maria would say, "I will marry the most handsome man in the world."

And then one day, into Maria's village rode a man who seemed to be just the one she had been talking about. He was a dashing young ranchero, the son of a wealthy rancher from the southern plains. He could ride like a Comanche! In fact, if he owned a horse, and it grew tame, he would give it away and go rope a wild horse from the plains. He thought it wasn't manly to ride a horse if it wasn't half wild.

He was handsome! And he could play the guitar and sing beautifully. Maria made up her mind-that was, the man for her! She knew just the tricks to win his attention.

If the ranchero spoke when they met on the pathway, she would turn her head away. When he came to her house in the evening to play his guitar and serenade her, she wouldn't even come to the window. She refused all his costly gifts. The young man fell for her tricks. "That haughty girl, Maria, Maria! " he said to himself. "I know I can win her heart. I swear I'll marry that girl."

And so everything turned out as Maria planned. Before long, she and the ranchero became engaged and soon they were married. At first, things were fine. They had two children and they seemed to be a happy family together. But after a few years, the ranchero went back to the wild life of the prairies. He would leave town and be gone for months at a time. And when he returned home, it was only to visit his children. He seemed to care nothing for the beautiful Maria. He even talked of setting Maria aside and marrying a woman of his own wealthy class.

As proud as Maria was, of course she became very angry with the ranchero. She also began to feel anger toward her children, because he paid attention to them, but just ignored her.

One evening, as Maria was strolling with her two children on the shady pathway near the river, the ranchero came by in a carriage. An elegant lady sat on the seat beside him. He stopped and spoke to his children, but he didn't even look at Maria. He whipped the horses on up the street.

When she saw that, a terrible rage filled Maria, and it all turned against her children. And although it is sad to tell, the story says that in her anger Maria seized her two children and threw them into the river! But as they disappeared down the stream, she realized what she had done! She ran down the bank of the river, reaching out her arms to them. But they were long gone.

The next morning, a traveler brought word to the villagers that a beautiful woman lay dead on the bank of the river. That is where they found Maria, and they laid her to rest where she had fallen.

But the first night Maria was in the grave, the villagers heard the sound of crying down by the river. It was not the wind, it was La Llorona crying. "Where are my children?" And they saw a woman walking up and down the bank of the river, dressed in a long white robe, the way they had dressed Maria for burial. On many a dark night they saw her walk the river bank and cry for her children. And so they no longer spoke of her as Maria. They called her La Llorona, the weeping woman. And by that name she is known to this day. Children are warned not to go out in the dark, for, La Llorona might snatch them and never return them.

Where Have All the Flowers Gone?

Where have all the .......... gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the .......... gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the .......... gone?
Girls have picked them every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the ................... gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the ................... gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the ................... gone?
Taken husbands every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the ................... gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the ................... gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the ................... gone?
Gone for soldiers every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the .............. gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the .............. gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the .............. gone?
Gone to graveyards every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the .................... gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the .................... gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the .................... gone?
Covered with flowers every one
When will we ever learn?
When will we ever learn?

Little Boxes

1. Little boxes on the hillside, Little boxes made of ticky-tacky, Little boxes, little boxes, Little boxes, all the same. There's a green one and a pink one And a blue one and a yellow one And they're all made out of ticky-tacky And they all look just the same. 2. And the people in the houses All go to the university, And they all get put in boxes, Little boxes, all the same. And there's doctors and there's lawyers And business executives, And they're all made out of ticky-tacky And they all look just the same.

3. And they all play on the golf-course, And drink their Martini dry, And they all have pretty children, And the children go to school. And the children go to summer camp And then to the university, And they all get put in boxes And they come out all the same. 4. And the boys go into business, And marry, and raise a family, And they all get put in boxes, Little boxes, all the same. There's a green one and a pink one And a blue one and a yellow one And they're all made out of ticky-tacky And they all look just the same. ticky-tacky:......? The song is a political satire about the development of suburbia and associated conformist middle-class attitudes. It refers to suburban tract housing as "little boxes" of different colors "all made out of ticky-tacky", and which "all look just the same." "Ticky-tacky" is a reference to the shoddy material used in the construction of housing of that time.

WOMEN

International Women's Day

International Women's Day (8 March) is an occasion marked by women's groups around the world. This date is also commemorated at the United Nations and is designated in many countries as a national holiday. When women on all continents, often divided by national boundaries and by ethnic, linguistic, cultural, economic and political differences, come together to celebrate their Day, they can look back to a tradition that represents at least nine decades of struggle for equality, justice, peace and development.
International Women's Day is the story of ordinary women as makers of history; it is rooted in the centuries-old struggle of women to participate in society on an equal footing with men. In ancient Greece, Lysistrata initiated a sexual strike against men in order to end war; during the French Revolution, Parisian women calling for "liberty, equality, fraternity" marched on Versailles to demand women's suffrage.
The idea of an International Women's Day first arose at the turn of the century, which in the industrialized world was a period of expansion and turbulence, booming population growth and radical ideologies. Following is a brief chronology of the most important events:
1909
In accordance with a declaration by the Socialist Party of America, the first National Woman's Day was observed across the United States on 28 February. Women continued to celebrate it on the last Sunday of that month through 1913.
1910
The Socialist International, meeting in Copenhagen, established a Women's Day, international in character, to honour the movement for women's rights and to assist in achieving universal suffrage for women. The proposal was greeted with unanimous approval by the conference of over 100 women from 17 countries, which included the first three women elected to the Finnish parliament. No fixed date was selected for the observance.
1911
As a result of the decision taken at Copenhagen the previous year, International Women's Day was marked for the first time (19 March) in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland, where more than one million women and men attended rallies. In addition to the right to vote and to hold public office, they demanded the right to work, to vocational training and to an end to discrimination on the job.
Less than a week later, on 25 March, the tragic Triangle Fire in New York City took the lives of more than 140 working girls, most of them Italian and Jewish immigrants. This event had a significant impact on labour legislation in the United States, and the working conditions leading up to the disaster were invoked during subsequent observances of International Women's Day.
1913-1914
As part of the peace movement brewing on the eve of World War I, Russian women observed their first International Women's Day on the last Sunday in February 1913. Elsewhere in Europe, on or around 8 March of the following year, women held rallies either to protest the war or to express solidarity with their sisters.
1917
With 2 million Russian soldiers dead in the war, Russian women again chose the last Sunday in February to strike for "bread and peace". Political leaders opposed the timing of the strike, but the women went on anyway. The rest is history: Four days later the Czar was forced to abdicate and the provisional Government granted women the right to vote. That historic Sunday fell on 23 February on the Julian calendar then in use in Russia, but on 8 March on the Gregorian calendar in use elsewhere.
Since those early years, International Women's Day has assumed a new global dimension for women in developed and developing countries alike. The growing international women's movement, which has been strengthened by four global United Nations women's conferences, has helped make the commemoration a rallying point for coordinated efforts to demand women's rights and participation in the political and economic process. Increasingly, International Women's Day is a time to reflect on progress made, to call for change and to celebrate acts of courage and determination by ordinary women who have played an extraordinary role in the history of women's rights.

The Role of the United Nations

Few causes promoted by the United Nations have generated more intense and widespread support than the campaign to promote and protect the equal rights of women. The Charter of the United Nations, signed in San Francisco in 1945, was the first international agreement to proclaim gender equality as a fundamental human right. Since then, the Organization has helped create a historic legacy of internationally agreed strategies, standards, programmes and goals to advance the status of women worldwide.
Over the years, United Nations action for the advancement of women has taken four clear directions: promotion of legal measures; mobilization of public opinion and international action; training and research, including the compilation of gender desegregated statistics; and direct assistance to disadvantaged groups. Today a central organizing principle of the work of the United Nations is that no enduring solution to society's most threatening social, economic and political problems can be found without the full participation, and the full empowerment, of the world's women.

On Martin Luther King's birthday!

Slavery

What was the slave trade?

It seems hard to imagine now but since about 1500 there was a lot of money to be made buying and selling people as slaves.Companies would go to Africa and capture men, women and children to be taken in horrific conditions on ships and destined for a cruel life in slavery.
Cities such as Bristol, London and Liverpool grew rich off the trade.
It’s thought about 24 million Africans were sold to slave traders.
Plantations
The slaves were usually sent to work in the sugar cane fields on plantations – giant farms – in the Caribbean, North America and South America where the work was really hard and dangerous. Many were left disabled by work accidents.
Other slaves were used as personal servants in polite society in cities such as London and Edinburgh.

How were slaves treated?

It was a very hard life as a slave and very difficult to imagine now.
Whole families would be taken from their homes in Africa against their will and moved in dreadful cramped, diseased conditions on ships. Many died during the voyage.
The people would then be sold as slaves – separated from their family – and become the property of someone, just like you would own a bicycle or a car. They had no rights at all.
This would mean they might have to change their name to that of their owner, and work really hard for up to 18 hours a day in terrible conditions.
They had a poor diet and no care for their health, often walking for miles in the hot sun and living in rough huts and sleeping on a dirt floor.
Hard life
Masters would control their slaves by whipping them.
Once a slave started work on a plantation they usually only lived for about seven years because they were worked so hard. If the plantation was run by a church they usually died after three years.
Being a slave was a hard, miserable life.

How was it abolished?

 

In the late 18th century, an anti-slavery movement began to get a lot of backing in Britain, firstly by some religious groups, such as the Quakers.People began to stop using sugar as they didn’t want to be seen to be supporting the use of slaves on the big sugar plantations.
Thomas Clarkson spent seven years riding 35,000 miles on horseback across Britain, getting support for the anti-slavery campaign and in 1787 persuaded the MP William Wilberforce to take the fight into Parliament.
At the same time, slaves were protesting about how they were being abused. One of these was Olaudah Equiano, a former slave who bought his own freedom and published a best-selling book.
Legal end
The Abolition of the Slave Trade Act was passed by the British Parliament on 25 March 1807.
This law included a fine of £100 for every slave found aboard a British ship – at that time the fine was so high it probably would have put the ship owner out of business.
Slavery was then wiped out slowly – with slaves first being freed but signed up to work in “an apprenticeship” for their masters for five years.By 1838 all slaves in the British Empire were formally set free.
Slaves didn’t get any money for all the work they had done, but slave owners were given money for the loss of the slaves! One example was the Bishop of Exeter who gave up 665 slaves so got £12,700 (around £750,000 today).

Is there still slavery today?

Modern slavery is different from historical slavery because although today people may live in awful conditions and be forced to do things, they still have human rights.
So for example if a young girl was kidnapped today and made to work as a servant, but then managed to escape, then the police would protect her.
In the old days, if she was a slave and escaped she would be returned to her master by the police and probably whipped for being a disobedient slave.
Human trafficking
One in six people who are forced to work are victims of what’s called human trafficking, a business that makes huge amounts of money for those who run it.
It’s thought there are about 5 or 6 million children who are forced to work. Some of them are born into slavery, others are sold by their parents or stolen – they work in farming, factories and for richer people.

The Pilgrims and America's First Thanksgiving

The Pilgrims, who celebrated the first thanksgiving in America, were fleeing religious persecution in their native England. In 1609 a group of Pilgrims left England for the religious freedom in Holland where they lived and prospered. After a few years their children were speaking Dutch and had become attached to the dutch way of life. This worried the Pilgrims. They considered the Dutch frivolous and their ideas a threat to their children's education and morality.
So they decided to leave Holland and travel to the New World. Their trip was financed by a group of English investors, the Merchant Adventurers. It was agreed that the Pilgrims would be given passage and supplies in exchange for their working for their backers for 7 years.
On Sept. 6, 1620 the Pilgrims set sail for the New World on a ship called the Mayflower. They sailed from Plymouth, England and aboard were 44 Pilgrims, who called themselves the "Saints", and 66 others ,whom the Pilgrims called the "Strangers."
The long trip was cold and damp and took 65 days. Since there was the danger of fire on the wooden ship, the food had to be eaten cold. Many passengers became sick and one person died by the time land was sighted on November 10th.
The long trip led to many disagreements between the "Saints" and the "Strangers". After land was sighted a meeting was held and an agreement was worked out, called the Mayflower Compact, which guaranteed equality and unified the two groups. They joined together and named themselves the "Pilgrims."
Although they had first sighted land off Cape Cod they did not settle until they arrived at Plymouth, which had been named by Captain John Smith in 1614. It was there that the Pilgrims decide to settle. Plymouth offered an excellent harbor. A large brook offered a resource for fish. The Pilgrims biggest concern was attack by the local Native American Indians. But the Patuxets were a peaceful group and did not prove to be a threat.
The first winter was devastating to the Pilgrims. The cold, snow and sleet was exceptionally heavy, interfering with the workers as they tried to construct their settlement. March brought warmer weather and the health of the Pilgrims improved, but many had died during the long winter. Of the 110 Pilgrims and crew who left England, less that 50 survived the first winter.
On March 16, 1621 , what was to become an important event took place, an Indian brave walked into the Plymouth settlement. The Pilgrims were frightened until the Indian called out "Welcome" (in English!).

His name was Samoset and he was an Abnaki Indian. He had learned English from the captains of fishing boats that had sailed off the coast. After staying the night Samoset left the next day. He soon returned with another Indian named Squanto who spoke better English than Samoset. Squanto told the Pilgrims of his voyages across the ocean and his visits to England and Spain. It was in England where he had learned English.
Squanto's importance to the Pilgrims was enormous and it can be said that they would not have survived without his help. It was Squanto who taught the Pilgrims how to tap the maple trees for sap. He taught them which plants were poisonous and which had medicinal powers. He taught them how to plant the Indian corn by heaping the earth into low mounds with several seeds and fish in each mound. The decaying fish fertilized the corn. He also taught them to plant other crops with the corn.
The harvest in October was very successful and the Pilgrims found themselves with enough food to put away for the winter. There was corn, fruits and vegetables, fish to be packed in salt, and meat to be cured over smoky fires.

The Pilgrims had much to celebrate, they had built homes in the wilderness, they had raised enough crops to keep them alive during the long coming winter, they were at peace with their Indian neighbors. They had beaten the odds and it was time to celebrate.
The Pilgrim Governor William Bradford proclaimed a day of thanksgiving to be shared by all the colonists and the neighboring Native Americans. They invited Squanto and the other Indians to join them in their celebration. Their chief, Massasoit, and 90 braves came to the celebration which lasted for 3 days. They played games, ran races, marched and played drums. The Indians demonstrated their skills with the bow and arrow and the Pilgrims demonstrated their musket skills. Exactly when the festival took place is uncertain, but it is believed the celebration took place in mid-October.
The following year the Pilgrims harvest was not as bountiful, as they were still unused to growing the corn. During the year they had also shared their stored food with newcomers and the Pilgrims ran short of food.
The 3rd year brought a spring and summer that was hot and dry with the crops dying in the fields. Governor Bradford ordered a day of fasting and prayer, and it was soon thereafter that the rain came. To celebrate - November 29th of that year was proclaimed a day of thanksgiving. This date is believed to be the real true beginning of the present day Thanksgiving Day.
The custom of an annually celebrated thanksgiving, held after the harvest, continued through the years. During the American Revolution (late 1770's) a day of national thanksgiving was suggested by the Continental Congress.

In 1817 New York State had adopted Thanksgiving Day as an annual custom. By the middle of the 19th century many other states also celebrated a Thanksgiving Day. In 1863 President Abraham Lincoln appointed a national day of thanksgiving. Since then each president has issued a Thanksgiving Day proclamation, usually designating the fourth Thursday of each November as the holiday.

WATER: the transcript

Consider this, we live on a water planet. Through the millennia the water cycle has supported all life. Shaping weather, seasons and climate; providing habitats for most of the world's living things and most of them including us are almost entirely made up of water.

Now consider this: water is a finite substance, a limited resource. Only a tiny fraction of the earth's water is fresh. It supports everything from agriculture and sanitation to aquatic ecosystems like rivers and streams.

Water falls unevenly across the planet; but much of it is locked up in glaciers, permanent snow cover, ice and permafrost. Water is also stuck underground, very deeply earthed and hard to reach. To make matters worse, water is being threatened by pollution, overpopulation, climate change, mismanagement and war.

Pollution is so severe, that diseases are increasing in both humans and animals. Habitat are being destroyed, rain is turning into acid. So many chemicals flow into rivers and lakes that the actual composition of water in some places has been fundamentally changed.

Human encroachment is also drying our aquifers diverting the natural flow of rivers and straining water supplies. Hidden in everyday consumption is the careless and unnecessary waste of water. Massive dams displace millions of people and destroy whole eco systems.

Global warming is altering the water cycle, causing more severe and unpredictable flooding and droughts, ultimately shifting where water flows. Unregulated corporate privatization threatens access to water for the poor. Some governments fail to deliver water where it is needed most. These stresses have created political and military conflicts that will only get worse. Ultimately, humanity is poisoning, squandering and overburden water resources.

The result is that billions of people lack access to clean water. Millions of children die every year from preventable water born diseases. Lack of clean water and basic sanitation traps people in problem.
People are fighting and dying for it. We're at a crises point.

We still have time to turn this around.
We can conserve water and not waste it.
Invest in smart water infrastructure and technologies.
Increase environmental regulations on polluting industries.
Tell government leaders to fulfil financial pledges for clean water.
Ensure that water is not treated as a commodity.
And the most important: we must recognize that access to clean water is a basic human right.

And that United Nations should adopt a global treaty on the right to water.

Water equals Life.
There's no separation; by protecting water, we can protect our selves and this blue planet for future generations.