Sunday, October 02, 2005

Learn English from the speeches of George W. Bush

I've been listening to the podcasts of 2600 magazine ("The Hacker Quarterly"), which are quite good. Emmanuel Goldstein (real name Eric Corley) has been traveling the world by land and sea, and reporting back on the state of freedom and technology via satellite phone, cell phone, or land line, as available. The August 30, 2005 podcast of "Off the Wall" was recorded in Tiananmen Square. Among observations about Chinese kite flying at busy intersections, their appreciation for ice and the sale of bottles of frozen mineral water, Chinese throat clearing noises, and the surprising modernity of Beijing, they reported on the wide availability of books in English. One bookstore of 6 or 7 floors was reported to have an entire floor on books for learning English. One of the books, which Emmanuel's companion Sasja purchased for its humor value, was a book to learn English through reading the speeches of George W. Bush. Quite amusing, given his poor ability to speak the language. (This topic occurs about 26:30 into the August 30 "Off the Wall" podcast, which you can subscribe to via Apple's iTunes.)

1 comment:

Einzige said...

That Bushism page is fantastic!